The stakes are higher as authorities say Sunday that an Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained by Iran for months, with Tehran threatening to retaliate. are. attack on the country by Israel.
Reza Valizadeh’s imprisonment, confirmed by the U.S. State Department to CBS News and the Associated Press, comes as Iran marks the 45th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover and hostage crisis on Sunday. It also follows Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s threats against both Israel and the United States the day before. “Shocking reaction” When long-range bombers B-52 reached the Middle East to stop Tehran.
Validzadeh worked for Radio Farda, a station under Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. In February, he wrote on social platform X that his family had been detained to see him return to Iran.
“We are aware of reports that a U.S. Iranian national has been arrested in Iran,” the State Department told CBS News on Sunday in response to a question about Valizadeh.
“We are working with our Swiss partners, who act as a protective force for the United States in Iran, to gather further information regarding this incident,” the spokesperson said. “Iran routinely unjustly imprisons U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for political purposes. This practice is cruel and violates international law.”
A spokesperson said the State Department was “unable to provide additional comment due to privacy concerns.”
A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty spokesperson told CBS News in a statement on Saturday that they were aware of Valizadeh’s detention in Iran, but had not officially confirmed the charges against him. said. They said Valizadeh stopped working with them in November 2022.
“We are deeply concerned by the Iranian regime’s continued arrest, harassment and intimidation of members of the media,” the spokesperson said.
In August, Valizadeh appeared to post two messages suggesting that he had returned to Iran, even though Radio Farda was considered a hostile news outlet by the Iranian theocracy.
“I arrived in Tehran on March 6, 2024. Before that, there were unfinished negotiations with the intelligence department (of the Revolutionary Guards),” the message read in part. “In the end, I returned to my home country for the first time in 13 years without any guarantees of safety, even verbal ones.”
Vahid Salemi/AP
Valizadeh added the name of a man who claimed to work for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. The Associated Press could not confirm whether the person works for the department.
Rumors had been circulating for weeks that Valizadeh had been detained. The Human Rights Defenders News Agency, which monitors events in Iran, said he was detained upon arrival in Iran earlier this year but later released.
He was later rearrested and sent to Evin Prison, where he now faces trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court, which regularly holds closed-door hearings in which defendants are faced with secret evidence. The station reported. Valizadeh was also arrested in 2007, the newspaper said.
Iran does not recognize Barizadeh’s detention. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.
Voice of America, another U.S. government-funded outlet overseen by the Agency for Global Media, first reported that the State Department confirmed Valizadeh’s detention in Iran.
Since the 1979 U.S. embassy crisis, in which dozens of hostages were freed after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used Western-linked prisoners of war as bargaining chips with the world. In September 2023, Five Americans held for years in Iran are freed in exchange. The US releases five detained Iranians and $6 billion in Iranian assets frozen by South Korea.
Valizadeh is the first American known to have been detained in Iran since then.
Meanwhile, Iranian state television broadcast footage from cities across the country on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of the embassy takeover.
General Hossein Salami, the head of the SS, also spoke in Tehran, repeating the pledge made by Khamenei the day before.
“The resistance front and Iran will equip whatever it takes to confront and defeat the enemy,” he said, referring to Iranian-backed militant groups such as Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In Tehran, thousands of people chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” outside the gates of the former US embassy. Some burned national flags and portraits of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
They also featured images of slain Iranian-allied militant leaders, including Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Palestinian Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Crowds at state-sponsored rallies shouted their readiness to defend Palestinians.
Tensions in the Middle East have been rising since war broke out on October 7, 2023. Hamas-led militants have stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Gaza health authorities did not say how many fighters there were, but said more than half were women and children.
Shortly after, Hezbollah, which is also an ally of Iran, began firing rockets, drones, and missiles from Lebanon toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas. A year of cross-border fighting erupted into full-scale war on October 1, when Israeli forces launched their first ground invasion into southern Lebanon since 2006.
Iran, one of Israel’s archenemies, began its own attack on October 1, launching approximately 180 ballistic missiles toward Israel. Israel retaliated, launching airstrikes on Iranian military facilities on October 25th.
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