An American-Iranian journalist who once worked for a US-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained in Iran, according to his former employer and multiple press freedom groups. <\/p>\n
Reza Valizadeh was arrested in Tehran in September, a source close to his family told his former employer Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the US-funded Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty (RFE\/RL). <\/p>\n
Iran has not acknowledged detaining Valizadeh and the Iranian mission to the United Nations has declined to comment on his situation. <\/p>\n
RFE\/RL says it has had no official confirmation of the charges facing Valizadeh, who left Radio Farda in November 2022, but it is \u201cprofoundly concerned about the continued arrest, harassment and threats against media professionals by the Iranian regime.\u201d <\/p>\n
Reports of the journalist\u2019s apparent detention come amid heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, whose Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday promised a \u201cteeth-breaking\u201d response to Israel and the United States after Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military sites late last month. <\/p>\n
In a post on his X account on February 20, 2024, Valizadeh suggested Iranian authorities had pressured his family to convince him to return to the country. <\/p>\n
In a later post, on August 13, the journalist said he had arrived back in the Iranian capital on March 6, 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cBefore that, I had half-finished negotiations with the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) Intelligence Organization. Finally, I returned to my country after 14 years, on my own responsibility and without a letter of amnesty, even verbally,\u201d the post read. <\/p>\n
RFE\/RL said it was not clear under what circumstances Valizadeh had written the post. <\/p>\n
Citing one of Valizadeh\u2019s former colleagues, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in October <\/strong>that Valizadeh was being held without access to a lawyer in Iran\u2019s Evin prison, which is notorious for housing critics of the Iranian regime. <\/p>\n The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which focuses on Iran, also believes Valizadeh is being held in Evin. <\/p>\n \u201cIranian authorities must immediately release journalist Reza Valizadeh and drop any charges levied against him,\u201d said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ\u2019s interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. <\/p>\n \u201cI cannot say clearly enough to my fellow Americans what already appears on the Department of State\u2019s website: \u2018Do not travel to Iran, due to the risk of kidnapping and the arbitrary arrest and detention of US citizens.\u2019 Simply put: Do not go to Iran,\u201d the State Department spokesperson said. <\/p>\n Iran has a long history of using dual nationals as bargaining chips in its troubled relationship with the West. In 2023, it released five Americans designated by the US as wrongfully detained as part of a wider deal that included the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds. <\/p>\n It is currently marking the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 US citizens were held captive for 444 days. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An American-Iranian journalist who once worked for a US-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained in Iran, according to his former employer and multiple press freedom groups. Reza Valizadeh was arrested in Tehran in September, a source close to his family told his former employer Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the US-funded Radio <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}