Cecilia Sala in Iranian prison "I sleep on the floor in the cold"
Italian journalist Cecilia Sala has been in prison in Tehran for weeks. In a phone call with her family, she describes the catastrophic prison conditions.
02.01.2025, 19:15
02.01.2025, 19:16
dpa
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- Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran on December 19.
- In a phone call with her family, she described her catastrophic detention conditions.
- The government in Rome has now increased public pressure on Iran and summoned the Iranian ambassador.
The headlines in Italy have been dominated for days by reports about the imprisonment of journalist Cecilia Sala in Tehran. Now the government in Rome has increased the public pressure on Iran. Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Resa Saburi has been summoned to demand Sala's immediate release, the Italian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday. It also called for dignified detention conditions for the reporter with full respect for human rights. This must include access to consular services and visiting rights.
The opposition Partito Democratico party also called for the reporter's immediate release and referred to Italian media reports that Sala had called her family. She told of her detention in very poor conditions, as the newspaper "Corriere della Sera " writes: "I sleep on the floor in the cold, they even took away my glasses." She also said that she had not received a package of personal belongings sent by the embassy.
Sala works for the daily newspaper "Il Foglio". She was detained in Tehran on December 19 - six days after arriving on a journalist's visa. Iranian authorities confirmed on Monday that she had been arrested on charges of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the Iranian state news agency Irna reported.
Is Sala a bargaining chip?
The Sala case is complicated by indications that her fate appears to be intertwined with that of an Iranian imprisoned in Italy. Mohammad Abedini-Najafabad was arrested at Milan's Malpensa Airport on December 16 on the basis of a US arrest warrant. He is accused of being involved in a drone attack in Jordan in January 2024 that cost the lives of three American soldiers.
Italian media report that Sala is being used by the Iranian leadership as a bargaining chip to secure Abedini's release. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani did not rule out such a scenario when asked about it in an interview on Rete 4.