TEHRAN - The wife of The Washington Post's Tehran bureau chief was quietly released last week, a family member said Monday, although her husband remains in custody since the two were detained in July.
The wife, Yeganeh Salehi, a correspondent for The National, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, was not willing to be interviewed, said the family member, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.
Mrs. Salehi and her husband, Jason Rezaian, were arrested on July 22 during a raid on their home by unknown security forces. Two other journalists who were arrested on the same day in connection with them have already been released.
There have never been any formal charges against Mr. Rezaian, who has Iranian and United States citizenship, or Mrs. Salehi, an Iranian. During his visit to the United Nations in September, Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told NPR that Mr. Rezaian was being interrogated 'for what he has done as an Iranian citizen.' Iran does not recognize dual citizenship and regards Mr. Rezaian solely as an Iranian.
Mrs. Salehi, like her husband, was officially accredited by Iranian authorities to work as a journalist.
The Washington Post quoted from an email written by Mr. Rezaian's brother Ali, confirming that Mrs. Salehi was freed on bail in the middle of last week. Ali Rezaian told the newspaper that Mrs. Salehi succeeded in visiting him over the weekend, and that she and her husband were 'physically healthy.'
There have been concerns about Mr. Rezaian's health because he has high blood pressure and must take medication daily. Neither Mrs. Salehi nor her family in Tehran will be speaking to the news media about the detentions, Ali Rezaian told The Washington Post, and he asked for their privacy to be respected.
According to several sources, Mr. Rezaian has not been held at Tehran's main prison, Evin, but in a private house, which could indicate that he is not detained by regular security forces but by a parallel organization connected to hard-line centers of power in Iran.
Posted by Unknown on Monday, October 6, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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