kayhan.ir

News ID: 62288
Publish Date : 20 January 2019 - 21:45

West Silent on ‘Barbaric’ Treatment of Journalist


TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Women staged a protest here on Sunday calling for the release of a Press TV journalist arrested in the United States.
The demonstrators waved pictures of Marziyeh Hashemi at the rally in front of the Swiss Embassy which handles U.S. interests in the Islamic republic.
U.S.-born Hashemi, who works for Iran’s leading English-language channel, was held on arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport on January 13, according to family and friends cited by Press TV.
Hashemi, a Muslim convert who changed her name from Melanie Franklin, had reportedly been visiting her ill brother and other family members.
A U.S. court on Friday confirmed the arrest, saying her testimony is required over an unspecified case but that she is not accused of a crime.
At a hearing in Washington, a judge ordered the partial unsealing of an order on Hashemi.
It said that Hashemi was arrested on "a material arrest warrant” and would be let go after she gave testimony to a grand jury investigating unspecified "violations of U.S. criminal law”.
The protesters in Tehran shouted slogans such as "We are all Marzieh” and carried posters with the hashtag #FreeMarziehHashemi.
"We demand that she is immediately released and returned to her family in full health,” demonstrator Minaeepour told AFP.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif on Thursday described the detention as a "political action” by the United States that "tramples on freedom of speech” and demanded she be set free.
Zarif said that since Hashemi was married to an Iranian she is considered as an Iranian national and "it is our duty to defend our citizens”.
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters Hashemi’s detention has revealed the weakness of the U.S. government, which always claims to be a "beacon of democracy in the world".
"What kind of democracy is this that a women who has traveled there to visit her family and is a hard-working journalist who has done nothing but reporting, is detained by them and nobody says anything," he added.
Salehi criticized the silence of Western countries, particularly the European Union, on the detention.
"When an issue is in line with their interests, Western countries raise hell, but when such unfortunate cases happen in which the innocence and truthfulness of this lady is evident to everybody, they remain totally silent.”
Salehi stated the EU says a lot about the situation of human rights in Iran, so "why it has kept lull in this case?”
"Isn’t she a journalist? She has been both a journalist and has family and is also a mother… What have they done? They say she has been detained as a witness, but is anybody sent to jail because of being a witness?” he added.   
Hashemi’s family has said the journalist had been treated like a criminal during her detention. U.S. authorities had handcuffed and shackled her, had her hijab forcibly removed, and photographed her without a headscarf.
U.S.-based analysts have told Press TV that they believed either U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton has ordered the arrest and other possible action against the Iranian broadcaster.
The targeting of Press TV comes amid a stepped-up U.S. pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic under the administration of President Donald Trump.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday "the barbaric behavior towards the Press TV journalist and the illegal treatment she has been subjected to are proof that the Americans only preach about human rights to others, while they commit themselves to the same approach which their vassal state adopted in dealing with Khashoggi,” referring to Saudi Arabia which stands accused of murdering prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi.