An American-Iranian journalist is thought to have spent months in “cruel” detention in Iran, the U.S. government has said, as questions swirl over whether Iran will strike back at Israel and the anniversary of U.S. personnel being held for over a year in Tehran looms.
Reza Valizadeh, who had worked for the U.S. government-backed, Persian-language Radio Farda, has been in Iranian custody since September, according to media and non-profit reports.
Radio Farda said it was told in late October that Valizadeh had been arrested in the Iranian capital. Valizadeh had left the organization in November 2022, the outlet said.
The U.S.-headquartered non-governmental organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in mid-October that it was “alarmed” by reports Valizadeh had been arrested the previous month. “Iranian authorities must immediately release journalist Reza Valizadeh and drop any charges levied against him,” Yeganeh Rezaian, the head of the committee’s Middle East and North Africa programs, said in a statement.
Valizadeh has been held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison without access to a lawyer, a former, unnamed colleague told the committee, the organization said. The prison is known for holding political prisoners.
The State Department told the Associated Press that it was “aware of reports that this dual U.S.-Iranian citizen has been arrested in Iran” when approached about Valizadeh.
“We are working with our Swiss partners who serve as the protecting power for the United States in Iran to gather more information about this case,” the State Department said. “Iran routinely imprisons U.S. citizens and other countries’ citizens unjustly for political purposes.”
“This practice is cruel and contrary to international law,” the U.S. government said.
Voice of America, another U.S.-funded outlet which first reported the detention. The State Department and the Iranian mission to the United Nations have been contacted for comment.
Monday will mark 45 years since Iranian college students supporting Ayatollah Khomeini, the first of the country’s Supreme Leaders after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held dozens of American personnel as hostages for more than a year.
The U.S. and Iran cut off diplomatic relations in April 1980, months into the hostage crisis, which have not been reinstated. Switzerland is in charge of providing consular services to Americans in Iran.
Valizadeh said in a post to X in August that he had arrived back in Tehran in March after “half-finished negotiations” with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence agency.
“Finally, I returned to my country after 14 years, on my own responsibility and without a letter of trust, even verbally,” Valizadeh said. In a previous post in February, Valizadeh said his family had been “pressured to convince me to come back.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed a “jaw-breaking response” to the U.S. and Israel on Saturday after Israel targeted a number of Iran’s military sites late last month. Iran blamed the U.S., as well as Israel, for the country’s retaliatory strikes.
An Israeli operation against Iran has been expected for weeks, after Tehran launched around 200 ballistic missiles at the country at the start of October, which the U.S. helped to intercept.
The U.S. views Iran as the puppeteer behind the functioning of Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanese-based Hezbollah, among others. Both organizations are deemed terrorist groups by the U.S.