Looking for Saba

Looking for Saba

Saba Azarpeik, a leading independent journalist, political correspondent for the newspaper Etemad and regular contributor to the weekly Tejarat-e Farda, was arrested on May 28 in Tehran. Since her arrest, she has had no communication with her family and authorities have refused to provide information as to her whereabouts.

Azarpeik had reported on Iran’s hardline movement, and had recently published an interview with a University of Tehran professor who supported a anti-Rouhani rally that took place in early May. During the interview, she asked some difficult questions about the movement’s objectives, which she suggested were about obstructing the current administration’s policies. She has also been very active on Facebook in recent months.

Earlier this week, 140 journalists signed a letter calling for Azerpeik’s release, appealing to the Rouhani administration and the Ministry of Culture to look into the case and for Iran to uphold Azarpeik’s legal rights.