Family Says ‘Very Concerned’

Press TV Anchor Left to Languish in U.S. Jail

Date: 19 January 2019 - 21:37

News ID: ۶۲۲۳۵

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The children of an American journalist working for Iran’s Press TV channel on Saturday expressed concern about the situation of their mother who is languishing in U.S. jail for more than a week without any charge.
After days of silence, the U.S. government confirmed Friday that it has been holding Marziyeh Hashemi in jail since Sunday as a "material witness” in a case in Washington.
A U.S. government source told Reuters that the grand jury in Hashemi's case is to examine on Wednesday whether Press TV is a propaganda outlet that failed to register with the Justice Department as a "foreign agent.”
Her children - Hussein, Sarah and Reza - are also due to appear before the grand jury on the same day, after a Friday session was postponed.
Hashemi will be released immediately after the completion of her testimony to the grand jury investigating unspecified "violations of U.S. criminal law”, American authorities said.
Her elder son Hussein, however, said she was unlikely to be freed soon.
So far, the Press TV news presenter has appeared twice before a U.S. district judge in Washington.
Hashemi’s family is "very concerned” for her, Press TV cited her daughter, Sarah, as saying.
"We are hoping she will be free soon, but we have no concrete information and don’t know when that will be. We still do not know what this is about, which concerns us greatly,” she said. "This is a very difficult time for the whole family.”
Hashemi, a 59-year-old U.S. citizen who has been living in Iran for years, was detained last week while she was in the United States to visit her ailing brother and other family members.
The journalist has said she was treated like a criminal as security officials handcuffed and shackled her, had her hijab forcibly removed, and photographed her without her headscarf upon arrival at the prison.
"She was given short-sleeved clothing that does not comply with her religious dress code and she was forced to wrap a t-shirt on her hair as a temporary head-covering,” Sarah said.
According to Hashemi’s children, police refused to give her halal or vegetarian meals, "effectively denying her food and meaning she has only been able to eat a little bread since being detained.”
"My mother is a well-known journalist and has not committed any crime but this whole process has felt as if she is being treated like a criminal," Sarah said.
Hashemi married an Iranian man and converted to Islam. She has produced documentaries critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East and the country’s treatment of Muslims and African Americans.
She was arrested last Sunday at the St. Louis airport and transferred to Washington.
American authorities are now turning their focus on Press TV, Iran’s English-language news network.
U.S.-based analysts appearing regularly on Press TV believe either U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton has ordered the arrest and other possible action against the 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.
The case is similar to that of RT America, a subsidiary of Russia's RT television network, which has been the target of the U.S. Department of Justice since November 2017 as a "foreign agent” in the United States.
"The arrest of Marziyeh Hashemi by America is an unacceptable political act that tramples on freedom of speech,” Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday.
The New York-based Committee to Protest Journalists voiced concern on Friday about the arrest, saying that the United States needed to disclose the reason for her arrest.