Journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested in Tehran without due process. Italy demands her release, while Iran counters with a demand for the release of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, an Iranian drone expert arrested by Italy on behalf of the U.S.
The Italian government summoned the Iran ian ambassador on Thursday to demand the release of journalist Cecilia Sala, who was arrested in Tehran on December 19 without due process or clear charges. Iran responded that Sala will only be freed if Italy releases Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, an Iran ian national arrested by Italy on behalf of the United States on December 16. Abedini, 38, is a drone expert accused of supplying advanced technology to the Iran ian military in defiance of U.S. sanctions.
Components provided by Abedini were used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2019. Abedini was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on December 16 for conspiring with Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a dual U.S.-Iranian national, to illegally procure electronic components from American companies for use by the IRGC. Abedini was taken into custody at an airport in Milan, Italy, at the request of the United States, while Sadeghi was taken into custody in Massachusetts. Sala is an Italian journalist who hosts a news podcast. She had traveled to Tehran on December 13 with a journalist’s visa. She was arrested the day before she was scheduled to return to Italy and vaguely charged with “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic.” Sala’s last podcast, posted the day before her arrest, concerned a female Iranian standup comedian named Zeynab Mousavi who was arrested in October 2023 for speaking out against Iran’s laws requiring women to cover their heads. The podcast episode was Mousavi spoke up at a time when the brutal Iranian regime was struggling with nationwide protests over the killing of a young Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini, kidnapped by Iranian “morality police” for not wearing her headscarf properly and believed to have been beaten to death.
IRAN ITALY JOURNALIST ARREST DIPLOMACY
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