A U.S.-Iranian dual citizen and journalist is being held prisoner in Iran, the U.S. State Department acknowledged Sunday.
Reza Valizadeh has been detained since September, according to Voice of America. Valizadeh returned to Iran earlier this year after living abroad for more than a decade.
“I arrived in Tehran on March 6, 2024. Before that, I had unfinished negotiations with the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s] intelligence department,” Valizadeh wrote in his last social media post in August. “Eventually I came back to my country after 13 years without any security guarantee, even a verbal one.”
Valizadeh was detained for his work with Radio Farda, a partner of Radio Free Europe that operates as an independent media agency in Iran. Such outlets are considered hostile by Iran’s hardline Islamist government.
According to Valizadeh’s social media posts, his family members were detained and questioned in February, sparking his decision to return to Iran.
Valizadeh was sent to Iran’s notorious Evin prison, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. He will face a closed-door trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court and he will not be permitted to see the evidence against him.
Valizadeh is the first American citizen known to be detained in Iran since a September 2023 prisoner swap in which five Americans were traded for five Iranians. That swap also included $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds but that money has since been locked up because of Iran’s support of Hamas.
“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.”
With News Wire Services
