Iran Frees Detained Italian Journalist

UPDATE Jan 8, 2025 9:21 AM CST

An Italian journalist detained in Iran last month for murky reasons has been released. The AP reports that 29-year-old Cecilia Sala was freed Wednesday and has already left the country on a flight out of Tehran, after "intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels," per the office of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Iranian authorities confirmed Sala's release, reports the Wall Street Journal. The paper notes that, as part of the deal that led to Sala's freedom, Italy is set to release Iranian businessman Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested in Italy on behalf of the United States on Dec. 16, accused of supplying drone navigation tech to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's not clear what Sala had been detained for, other than a vague "breaking the laws of the Islamic Republic."

Dec 27, 2024 4:40 PM CST

Cecilia Sala, an Italian newspaper journalist and podcaster, has been arrested in Iran after going there this month for interviews, Italy's foreign ministry said. The podcast company she works for, Chora Media, said that the reporter is being held in solitary confinement at the Evin prison in Tehran and that no reason was given for her detention. Sala was due to fly back to Rome on Dec. 20 but didn't arrive at the Tehran airport, Italian officials said. Her cellphone went silent after texts the day before, the BBC reports. Iran hasn't confirmed the arrest.

"Cecilia was in Iran, with a regular visa, to report on a country she knows and loves, a country in which information is suffocated by repression," the newspaper Sala works for, Il Foglio, said in a statement. Her coverage while in Iran included accounts of women no longer wearing a hijab and an interview with a stand-up comedian who'd been jailed, per the New York Times. Italy's ambassador visited Sala on Friday and said she'd been allowed to call her family twice. The foreign ministry is negotiating for her release, per the Times. (More Iran stories.)