The Italian Foreign Ministry said Iran had held an Italian journalist in its prisons for more than a week.
The ministry said in a statement – today Friday – that Iranian police arrested journalist Cichilia Sala (29) in Tehran on December 19.
The Italian statement added that the government is working with Iranian authorities to clarify Cecilia Sala’s legal status and verify the conditions of her detention.
For its part, the company Quora Media – where the journalist works – said that Sala was in solitary confinement in Evin prison in Tehran and that Iran had not revealed the reason for his arrest.
She added that Sala left Rome for Iran on December 12, with a valid press visa, and conducted several interviews, and that her return to Rome was scheduled for the 20th of the same month.
The Italian journalist published, during her stay in Tehran, several reports on the changes occurring in the country after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Tehran, according to the website of the newspaper La Repubblica.
The Italian Foreign Ministry and Quora Media reported that the country’s ambassador to Iran, Paola Amiday, visited Sala in prison today, adding that she made a phone call with his family.
While the ministry called on the media to exercise a “maximum blackout” on the case, the company launched a hashtag called “Freedom for Cicilia” and declared that neither Italy nor Europe could tolerate this arbitrary detention and that she should be released immediately.