Tuesday, March 03, 2009

AFP, Tehran, March 02, 2009 – Iran said on Monday that a freelance US journalist with Iranian nationality who is reportedly being detained in the Islamic republic has been gathering news “illegally.” Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi did not confirm or deny whether Roxana Saberi, 31, was being detained by the Iranian authorities, but said her activities were “illegal”.

US-based National Public Radio and Fox News, citing Saberi’s father, reported last week that the US-born journalist was arrested in late January on charges of buying alcohol, which is prohibited in the Islamic republic.

“Ever since her credentials were revoked by Ershad, her activities have been illegal,” Ghashghavi said, referring to the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, which provides press accreditation for foreign journalists and Iranian reporters working for foreign media in Iran.

“Since 2006 when her press accreditation was revoked, she should not have illegally sought to gather information and news in Iran.”

A judiciary official told AFP it will comment about the Saberi case at a news conference on Tuesday.

Saberi’s father Reza Saberi, an Iranian, told NPR that she informed him of her detention after calling him from “an unknown place.”

“She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her,” Reza Saberi was quoted by NPR as saying, adding that it was just an excuse to arrest her.

He told Fox News that his daughter, who called him on February 10, also asked him not to reveal her detention. At the time she expected to be released within two to three days, the father said.

The journalist, a former Miss North Dakota, is a US national who also holds an Iranian passport because her father was born in Iran.

Saberi, who has reported for NPR, BBC and Fox News, has been living in Iran for six years, both working as a journalist and pursuing a master’s degree in Iranian studies and international relations.

She was also writing a book about Iran, NPR reported, adding that her father said she was planning to move back to the United States later this year.

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality, has detained several US-Iranians in recent years.

In May 2007, US-Iranian academicians Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh along with California-based peace activist Ali Shakeri were arrested and held for more than 100 days, on suspicion of causing harm to national security.

US-Iranian journalist Parnaz Azima had her passport confiscated in January 2007 for eight months after she arrived in Iran on a private visit. She avoided jail by paying bail of around 550,000 dollars after which she left the country.

Azima worked for the Persian-language service of Radio-Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is considered a “counter-revolutionary radio” by the Iranian authorities.

She was later sentenced in absentia to one year in prison for “propaganda against the regime.”

American former FBI agent Robert Levinson has been missing for nearly two years since vanishing on the Iranian island of Kish in the Gulf.

The judiciary has denied holding Levinson, whose disappearance is a further strain in relations between arch-foes the United States and Iran.

The two countries have had no diplomatic ties for nearly three decades and remain at loggerheads over the Iranian nuclear programme.