(Bloomberg) -- Iran has detained Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Il Foglio, one of her employers, said she was being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
“Cecilia was in Iran with the required visa to tell the story of a country she knows and loves,” the newspaper said, “a country where information is stifled through repression, threats, intimidation, violence, detention — often at the expense of reporters themselves.”
Italy’s foreign ministry said Sala had been detained Dec. 19 by Tehran police, and that Italian authorities were following the case with “maximum attention.” It added Rome’s ambassador in Tehran was able to visit Sala and that she had been allowed two phone calls to her relatives.
Iran’s government has not yet commented on Sala.
Sala’s recent posts on Instagram and X appear to show she arrived Tehran around Dec. 13.
It is not the first time Iran has detained a foreign journalist or an Italian national. Alessia Piperno was arrested in October 2022 and at some point held in the same Tehran prison. She was released after about 40 days as nationwide protests, triggered by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, gripped the Islamic republic.
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