Swiss Ambassador Summoned Over Hashemi Detention

Date: 22 January 2019 - 21:12

News ID: ۶۲۳۷۹

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran summoned on Tuesday Swiss ambassador in Tehran, a proxy for Washington, to protest the arrest of a journalist in the United States who was working for Iran’s English-language state TV.
Iran asked the envoy for the immediate release of Marziyeh Hashemi, reporter and presenter of Press TV, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.
The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in Tehran, where Washington has had no mission since 1980.
Qasemi said a Foreign Ministry official handed over a protest note on the "inhumane and discriminatory" behavior of U.S. authorities toward the Press TV journalist, and asked for her "immediate and unconditional" release.
Hashemi, a 59-year-old American-born Muslim convert who has been living in Iran for years, was detained at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in Missouri while she was in the U.S. to visit her ailing brother.
She was transferred to a detention facility in Washington, DC, where she was forced to remove her hijab and only offered food not permissible under her Islamic values.
After days of silence, the U.S. administration confirmed on Friday that it was holding Hashemi in jail as a "material witness” in an unspecified case, and that she would be released after she testified before a grand jury. She appeared in court on Friday for the second time for a hearing session, and is slated to appear before a grand jury for a third time on Wednesday.
Qasemi said the FBI's behavior towards Hashemi and the "questionable silence of the American officials" on the issue run counter to all international commitments of the U.S. and are "a blatant violation of human rights"
The U.S. government, he said, must be held accountable for such "discriminatory measures" and the violation of Hashemi's rights.
The Swiss envoy said he would immediately notify the U.S. Department of State and report back the results to Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday that the detention of the Press TV anchorwoman proves the United States is still violating the rights of black people.
"The U.S. govt needs to explain how Marziyeh Hashemi—a journalist and grandmother—is such a flight risk that she must be incarcerated until she finishes her testimony to a grand jury," Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account.
He pointed to the murder of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and added, "50 years after MLK assassination, U.S. still violates the civil rights of black men and women."