{"id":218626,"date":"2025-01-18T21:52:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T21:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/18\/italian-reporters-ordeal-in-iranian-prison-i-was-trapped-in-a-game\/"},"modified":"2025-01-18T21:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T21:52:15","slug":"italian-reporters-ordeal-in-iranian-prison-i-was-trapped-in-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/18\/italian-reporters-ordeal-in-iranian-prison-i-was-trapped-in-a-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian Reporter\u2019s Ordeal in Iranian Prison: \u2018I Was Trapped in a Game\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/18\/multimedia\/18iran-journalist-sub-jgkm\/18iran-journalist-sub-jgkm-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Italian Reporter\u2019s Ordeal in Iranian Prison: \u2018I Was Trapped in a Game\u2019\" title=\"Italian Reporter\u2019s Ordeal in Iranian Prison: \u2018I Was Trapped in a Game\u2019\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After Iran <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/05\/world\/middleeast\/iran-election-reformist-wins.html\" title=\"\">elected<\/a> a more moderate president last year, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/08\/world\/europe\/italy-iran-cecilia-sala-journalist-released.html\" title=\"\">Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist<\/a>, thought something may have changed in the country, which she had been covering from afar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For two years, Iran had rejected her application for a journalist visa, but it granted her one after the election. Colleagues and friends told her Iran\u2019s new government seemed more open to foreign reporters as it sought to repair relations with Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Sala, 29, had not traveled to Iran since 2021, before an <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/09\/26\/world\/middleeast\/women-iran-protests-hijab.html\" title=\"\">uprising<\/a> led by women and girls demanded an end to clerical rule. So she took a plane to Tehran, the capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI wanted to see with my eyes what had changed,\u201d she said in an interview recently in Rome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead, she got firsthand experience of what had not changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Dec. 19, as she was preparing an episode of an Italian podcast that she hosts every day, two agents from the intelligence wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps came to her hotel room in Tehran. When she tried to grab her phone, she said, one of them threw it to the other side of the room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They blindfolded her, Ms. Sala said, and took her to the notorious Evin prison, where most of Iran\u2019s political prisoners are held and some are tortured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At one point, when she asked what she was accused of, she was told, she said, that she had committed \u201cmany illegal actions in many places.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran has used the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/16\/world\/middleeast\/iran-hostage-swap-history.html\" title=\"\">detention of foreign and dual citizens<\/a> as a cornerstone of its foreign policy for nearly five decades, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The detainees \u2014 journalists, businesspeople, aid workers, diplomats, tourists \u2014 are effectively hostages whom Tehran leverages with other countries to swap prisoners and free frozen funds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Sala feared from the start that she had been taken hostage for a swap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said she had read that Italy had arrested an Iranian engineer three days earlier at the request of the United States. The engineer, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/12\/world\/europe\/italy-iran-us-abedini.html\" title=\"\">Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi,<\/a> was wanted for his alleged role in providing drone technology for Iran that was used in an attack that killed three American soldiers in Jordan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI was trapped in a game much bigger than I was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Sala said she worried that if the United States insisted on extraditing Mr. Abedini, she might linger in prison for years, her release contingent on the decision of the incoming American president, Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At Evin, the guards gave Ms. Sala a prison uniform, she said \u2014 a gray tracksuit, a blue shirt and pants, a blue hijab and a long covering known as a chador. They seized her glasses, without which she is all but blind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her cell had two blankets and no mattress or pillow. The light was constantly on, she said, and she could not sleep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Only after several days, when she closely inspected her cell\u2019s light yellow walls inch by inch, did she notice a blood stain, parallel marks, she said, perhaps left by a previous inmate marking the days, and the word \u201cfreedom\u201d in Farsi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She was blindfolded during hours of nearly daily interrogations in which she sat facing a wall, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her interrogator spoke flawless English, she said, and signaled that he knew Italy well by asking whether she preferred Roman or Neapolitan pizza crust.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She was permitted to speak at times with her parents and boyfriend back in Italy, she said, and when her mother told reporters there about her daughter\u2019s conditions in prison, the interrogator told Ms. Sala that because of those remarks, Iran would detain her for much longer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTheir game is to give you hope, and then use your hope to break you,\u201d Ms. Sala said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Through a narrow opening in her cell door, she said she heard sounds of crying, vomiting, footsteps and banging that sounded as if someone was running and hitting his or her head against the door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI thought if they don\u2019t take me out, I am going to also end up like this,\u201d Ms. Sala said. She feared that if they kept her for long, she said, \u201cI would come back an animal, not a person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Jan. 8, Ms. Sala was on a plane home, and shortly after, Italy freed Mr. Abedini. Ms. Sala was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/15\/world\/middleeast\/musk-italy-iran-prisoner-exchange.html\" title=\"\">released<\/a> in part with the assistance of Elon Musk, two Iranian officials said. \u201cI played a small role,\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1879954707176911095\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Musk later wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Sala said she was eager to return to her work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI am in a rush to go back to being a journalist,\u201d she said. \u201cTo tell someone else\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her ordeal has reverberated widely, particularly for journalists wanting to travel to Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cObviously, I am not going back to Iran,\u201d Ms. Sala said. \u201cAt least as long as there is the Islamic Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Farnaz Fassihi<!-- --> contributed reporting from New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/18\/world\/middleeast\/cecilia-sala-italy-iran-revolutionary-guards.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Iran elected a more moderate president last year, Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist, thought something may have changed in the country, which she had been covering from afar. For two years, Iran had rejected her application for a journalist visa, but it granted her one after the election. Colleagues and friends told her Iran\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/18\/multimedia\/18iran-journalist-sub-jgkm\/18iran-journalist-sub-jgkm-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[166206,1749,3096,19606,16121,172201,3832,156,8043,5918,50568,4733,11228],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218628,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218626\/revisions\/218628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}