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Society & Culture

Iranian-American Journalist Forced to Confess

September 23, 2014
IranWire
1 min read
Iranian-American Journalist Forced to Confess

Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Unit have extracted a forced confession from the detained Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezain under duress. In a short conversation an Iranian security official, who withheld his name due to the sensitivity of the case, told IranWire that the Guards pressed Rezaian to confess in order to “influence Iran's nuclear negotiations with the Western powers, including the United States.”

The official did not elaborate as to how the confession will be used, and when it will be aired. Many Iranian journalists who have been imprisoned and recently released have said that they were forced to confess on camera to a variety of charges including espionage, 'acting against the holy Islamic Republic,' and 'endangering national security.' Many commanders of the Guards, who are assigned by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have expressed their dissatisfaction with moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s government’s negotiations with the West. 

Rezaian has been detained in Ward 2-A of Evin Prison, which is run by the Guards, for two months. The security official clarified that Rezaian and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, were arrested separately from two other unidentified journalists. He clarified that the caretaker who was killed during the arrests and was first reported in IranWire was the caretaker of the building of the other journalists, who were a couple. The identities of the other two individuals has not been made public, though they have been released by authorities. The family of the caretaker is under pressure not to talk to the media.

Rezaian and his wife, Iranian journalist Yeganeh Salehi, were arrested on July 22 in Tehran following the raid on the house, along with two other freelance journalists. As the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, Rezaian recently reported on nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

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