Trial of an Italian reporter in an Iranian prison: ‘I was trapped in a game’

After Iran selected a more moderate president last year Cecilia Sala, Italian journalisthe thought that something had changed in the country he had heard from afar.

Iran rejected his application for a journalist visa for two years, but granted him a visa after the election. Colleagues and friends told him that Iran’s new government seems more open to foreign journalists as it tries to mend relations with Europe.

29-year-old Ms. Sala has not visited Iran since 2021 rebellion they demanded an end to clerical rule led by women and girls. He went to Tehran by plane.

“I wanted to see with my own eyes what had changed,” he said in a recent interview in Rome.

Instead, he gained first-hand experience of things that had not changed.

On December 19, he was preparing an episode of the Italian podcast he hosts daily when two agents from the intelligence wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrived at his hotel room in Tehran. When he tried to take his phone, someone threw it across the room.

Ms. Sala said she was blindfolded and taken to the notorious Evin prison, where most of Iran’s political prisoners are held and some are tortured.

At one point, when he asked what he was accused of, he was told that he had “committed many illegal acts in many places”.

Iran used it detention of foreign and dual nationals As the cornerstone of its foreign policy for almost five decades since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The prisoners – journalists, businessmen, aid workers, diplomats, tourists – are effectively hostages that Tehran uses with other countries to exchange prisoners and release frozen funds.

Ms. Sala was worried from the beginning that she was being taken as a hostage for exchange.

He said he read that Italy arrested an Iranian engineer three days ago at the request of the United States. engineer, Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, He is wanted in Jordan for his alleged role in providing Iran with the drone technology used in the attack that killed three American soldiers.

“I was trapped in a bigger game than I was,” he said.

Ms. Sala said she was concerned that if the United States insisted on extraditing Mr. Abedini, he could spend years in prison, subject to the release of new US President Donald J. Trump.

At her home, guards gave Ms. Sala a prison uniform, which she said was a gray tracksuit, a blue shirt and pants, a blue hijab and a long covering known as a sheet. They confiscated his glasses, without which he is completely blind.

There were two blankets in his cell, no mattress or pillow. The light was constantly on, he said, and he couldn’t sleep.

Only a few days later, when he scrutinized the pale yellow walls of his cell, he noticed bloodstains, parallel tracks, perhaps left by a previous prisoner marking the days and saying the word “freedom” in Persian.

He said he closed his eyes during almost every day of questioning, where he sat staring at the wall.

The interrogator said he spoke perfect English and stated that he knew Italy well, asking if he preferred Roman or Neapolitan pizza crust.

According to her, she was allowed to talk to her parents and her boyfriend in Italy from time to time, and when her mother spoke to journalists there about her daughter’s situation in prison, the investigator told Mrs. Sala that Iran would arrest her for these words. longer.

“Their game is to give you hope and then use it to break your hope,” Ms. Sala said.

Through a narrow opening in her cell door, she said she heard crying, vomiting, footsteps and banging, as if someone was running and banging their head on the door.

“I thought that if they don’t take me out, I will stay like this until the end,” said Mrs. Sala. He was afraid that if they kept him for a long time, he said, “I will come back as an animal, not a man.”

On January 8, Ms. Sala was on a flight home and Italy released Mr. Abedi shortly after. It was Ms. Sala was released Two Iranian officials said, partly with the help of Elon Musk. “I played a small role” Mr. Musk later wrote in X.

Mrs. Sala stated that she wished to return to her work.

“I’m in a hurry to return to journalism,” he said. “Telling someone else’s story.”

His ordeal had wide repercussions, especially for journalists who wanted to travel to Iran.

“It is clear that I will not return to Iran,” said Mrs. Sala. “At least as long as the Islamic Republic exists.”

Farnaz Fassihi He prepared a report from New York.