American Journalist Detained for 500+ Days
December 13, 2015: Jason Rezaian, a US journalist currently being held by Iran, hit 500 days in captivity in a prison in Tehran last Thursday.
The Washington Post released a statement on December 2, 2015, which stated that it had made an appeal to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The newspaper commented that Rezaian suffers from “high blood pressure and other ailments as Iran’s mistreatment of him as intensified”.
Despite Iran’s recent announcement that Rezaian had been sentenced to a prison term, no further information on the verdict—such as length of the sentence—has been released. Iran’s prisons are notorious for their hellish living conditions and abuse of Human Rights, through institutionalized torture, rape and forced amputation.
Rezaian’s brother, Ali, delivered a petition to Iran’s UN mission on December 3. The document held over 500,000 signatures which called for his brother’s “immediately and unconditional release”.
