Italian reporter’s ordeal in Iranian prison: ‘I was trapped in a game’

After Iran elected A more moderate president last year, Cecilia Sala is an Italian journalistShe thought that something had changed in the country she was covering from afar.

For two years, Iran rejected her request for a press visa, but granted her one after the election. Her colleagues and friends told her that the new Iranian government seemed more open to foreign correspondents as it sought to repair relations with Europe.

Ms. Sala, 29, has not traveled to Iran since 2021 Uprising She called for the leadership of women and girls to end the rule of the clergy. So I boarded a plane heading to the capital, Tehran.

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

Instead, I got first-hand experience of what hasn’t changed.

On December 19, while she was attending an episode of an Italian podcast program she hosts every day, two agents from the intelligence wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps came to her hotel room in Tehran. She said that when she tried to grab her phone, someone threw it to the other side of the room.

Ms. Sala said they blindfolded her and took her to the notorious Evin Prison, where most of Iran’s political prisoners are held and some are tortured.

At one point, when she asked what she was charged with, she was told that she had committed “many illegal acts in many places.”

Iran has been used Detention of foreign and dual citizens As a cornerstone of its foreign policy for nearly five decades, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The detainees – journalists, businessmen, aid workers, diplomats and tourists – are in effect hostages that Tehran is exploiting with other countries to swap prisoners and free frozen funds.

Ms. Sala feared from the beginning that she would be taken hostage for exchange.

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

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

Ms. Sala said she was concerned that if the United States insisted on extraditing Mr. Abedini, she could remain in prison for years, with her release contingent on the decision of the next US president, Donald J. Trump.

In Evin, guards gave Ms. Sala a prison uniform, she said: a gray tracksuit, a blue shirt and pants, a blue hijab and a long scarf known as a chador. They have taken her glasses, without which she becomes blind.

Her cell contained two blankets, and no mattress or pillow. She said the light was constantly on, and she couldn’t sleep.

Only several days later, when she closely inspected the bright yellow walls of her cell, did she notice a blood stain, parallel marks, she said, perhaps left by a former prisoner marking the days, and the word “freedom” in Persian.

She said she was blindfolded during hours of almost daily interrogation as she sat facing a wall.

She said the detective spoke impeccable English and indicated he knew Italy well when he asked her whether she preferred Roman or Neapolitan pizza crust.

She said she was sometimes allowed to talk to her parents and a boyfriend in Italy, and when her mother told reporters there about her daughter’s conditions in prison, the investigator told Ms. Sala that because of those statements, Iran would detain her for two years. Much longer.

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

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 banging their head on the door.

“I thought if they didn’t get me out, I would also end up like this,” Ms Sala said. She was afraid that they would keep her for a long time, so she said: “I will return to being an animal, not a human being.”

On January 8, Ms. Sala was on a plane returning home, and shortly after, Italy released Mr. Abedini. It was Mrs. Sala Released Two Iranian officials said this was partly with the help of Elon Musk. “I played a small part.” Mr Musk later wrote in X.

Ms Sala said she was keen to return to work.

“I am in a hurry to get back to work as a journalist,” she said. “To tell someone else’s story.”

Her plight has been widely reverberated, especially by journalists wishing to travel to Iran.

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

Farnaz Fasihi He contributed reporting from New York.