Italy says talks ongoing with Iran to release Cecilia Sala from prison

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said that Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist detained by Iranian police in Tehran, is in “good health” and that negotiations are under way to bring her home.

Tajani said she has spoken to her parents and received a visit by Italy’s ambassador to Iran.

“The Iranian Foreign Ministry will give her basic necessities, as requested by our embassy,” Tajani said in Rome.

Sala was reporting in the Iranian capital when she was detained on 19 December, according to the Italian foreign ministry.

A contributor to the newspaper Il Foglio and the voice behind the podcast Stories by Chora Media, Sala has had her work featured in several notable Italian outlets, including Vanity Fair, Wired, and L’Espresso.

Il Foglio said she is being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, notorious for holding dissidents.

The paper said Sala was in Iran with a regular visa “to report on a country she knows and loves.”

The newspaper’s editor, Claudio Cerasa, wrote on Friday that “journalism is not a crime,” asking to “bring Cecilia Sala home.”

Chora Meda said Sala had departed Rome on 12 December with a valid journalistic visa and official guarantees for foreign correspondents.

During her stay, she conducted several interviews and produced three episodes of her podcast. 

She was scheduled to return to Rome last Friday but stopped responding to messages on the morning of 19 December.

Iran has not acknowledged Sala’s detention but it can take weeks before authorities announce such arrests.

A history of similar detentions

Since the 1979 US Embassy crisis, which saw dozens of hostages released after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations with the world.

In September 2023, five Americans detained for years in Iran were freed in exchange for five Iranians in US custody and for $6 billion (€5.75 billion) in frozen Iranian assets to be released by South Korea.

Western journalists have been held in the past as well. Roxana Saberi, an American journalist, was detained by Iran in 2009 for 100 days before being released.

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Also detained by Iran was Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was held for over 540 days before being released in 2016 in a prisoner swap between Tehran and Washington.