TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- An American journalist working for Iran’s Press TV was to appear in a U.S. court on Friday after being detained without any explanation, the channel reported.
Iran has called for the immediate release of TV anchor and documentary film maker Marziyeh Hashemi, who was arrested on Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The broadcaster on Wednesday quoted Hashemi’s son as saying that the 59-year-old journalist, who had been living in Iran for more than a decade, was detained as a "material witness” to a criminal case and no formal charges had been made against her.
U.S. Federal law allows the government to arrest and detain a witness if it can prove that their testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and that it cannot guarantee their presence through a subpoena.
Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in New Orleans and changed her name after converting to Islam. She had traveled to the United States to visit her ill brother, the channel said.
She has told her daughter that she was handcuffed and shackled and was being treated like a criminal. The journalist has also said U.S. prison wardens forcibly removed her hijab and photographed her without a headscarf.
Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif condemned the arrest a "violation of freedom of speech and unacceptable”.
"She is the wife of an Iranian citizen and we see it as our duty to defend the rights of our citizens” Zarif told Iran’s Arabic-language state broadcaster Al-Alam news channel.
In a statement on Friday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Justice Department to disclose the reason for Hashemi’s arrest.
Tensions have been high between Iran and the United States since U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of an international nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
 Suzanne Nossel, CEO of the PEN America group promoting literature and free expression, said she is concerned Hashemi might have been targeted for her documentary work on the Black Lives Matter movement or for political reasons.
"If there are other grounds for Hashemi's detention they must be made clear, otherwise she should be released immediately," Nossel said.
Collin Cavell, former lecturer at the University of Bahrain, said on Friday he suspected either U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton had ordered the arrest.
Hashemi went to the U.S. "to see her family and everything that she did in the United States was legal unlike American reporters or British reporters who come to Iran, who go and see ministers and who see key political figures,” University of Tehran professor Muhammad Marandi told Press TV.
"The United States started the ordeal by detaining Marzieh Hashemi. If this Press TV journalist is not freed immediately, this ordeal will not end when the U.S. government desires,” the Iranian parliament speaker's special adviser on international affairs Hussein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted on Friday.
Akbar Muhammad, a spokesperson for prominent Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, said he planned to travel to Washington and speak to those who have caused this ordeal.
"A demonstration will be held on Friday and a women's march is planned for Saturday,” he said.
University of Tehran professor and international relations expert Foad Izadi said Press TV’s television programs are not accessible in the U.S. because of a government ban on the channel but Hashemi’s detention and the subsequent media outcry have made many Americans aware of the channel and here activities over the past years.
***