The brother of a Washington Post reporter detained in Iran since July 2014 delivered a petition to Iran’s United Nations mission on Thursday demanding the journalist’s release. “And he’s pressing this case with the U.N.’s working group on arbitrary detention”.
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In a statement Thursday, the U.S. State Department called Rezaian’s 500th day in detention “a sad and senseless marker”, and it said it would continue its efforts to bring him home.
The move came on the 500th day since the detention of the 39-year-old Rezaian, who holds dual American and Iranian citizenship.
The Washington Post reporter has been convicted of espionage by a secretive Iranian court and is serving an unspecified prison sentence in the notorious jail. “Jason’s brother Ali says his brother suffers back pain and has lost 50 pounds since his imprisonment, and there are other issues harder to see for him”. Human rights group Freedom House reported this year that “some 35 journalists and dozens of activists and human rights lawyers remained behind bars” in 2015, and “new arrests and prison sentences for media workers and online activists were reported throughout the year”.
Its new filing details the lack of openness and calls the proceedings “farcical”.
On Thursday, Rezaian’s brother, Ali, is planning to deliver a petition to Iran’s United Nations mission with more than 500,000 signatures calling for Rezaian’s “immediate and unconditional release”. His family members were not allowed to attend the hearing by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which takes up cases that it believes are of importance to the country’s national security. But no details of the verdict or sentence have been released.
Jason Rezaian was detained on July 22, 2014 with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and two photojournalists. Those officials say Rezaian was “completely familiar with modern espionage methods”. “He’s been held illegally, he should be released, and there haven’t been any consequences for them”. “If true, we call on the Iranian authorities to vacate this sentence and immediately free Jason so that he can be returned to his family”.
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