By Emma Bubola
Following Iran’s election of a more moderate president last year, Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist, hoped that some changes might have occurred in the nation, which she had been observing from a distance.
For two consecutive years, Iran had denied her request for a journalist visa, but after the election, it finally approved her application. Friends and colleagues informed her that Iran’s new administration appeared more welcoming to foreign reporters as it aimed to mend ties with Europe.
At 29, Sala had not visited Iran since 2021, preceding a women’s and girls’ uprising that sought to abolish clerical governance. Thus, she boarded a flight to Tehran, the capital.
“I wished to witness firsthand what had changed,” she expressed in a recent interview in Rome.
Instead, she encountered a harsh reality of what remained unchanged.
On December 19, as she was readying an episode of her daily Italian podcast, two agents from the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence branch entered her hotel room in Tehran. When she attempted to grab her phone, she recounted, one of them hurled it across the room.
They blindfolded her, Sala stated, and transported her to the infamous Evin prison, where a majority of Iran’s political prisoners are detained and some face torture.
At one point, when she inquired about her allegations, she was informed, she said, that she had engaged in “numerous illegal actions across many locations.”
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has utilized the detention of foreigners and dual citizens as a foundational element of its foreign policy. These detainees — whether journalists, businesspersons, aid workers, diplomats, or tourists — are treated as hostages that Tehran employs in negotiations for prisoner swaps and to access frozen assets.
From the onset, Sala feared she had been seized as leverage for a swap.
She noted that Italy had apprehended an Iranian engineer just three days prior at the request of the United States. The engineer, Mohammad Abedini, was wanted for allegedly supplying drone technology to Iran, which was implicated in an attack that resulted in the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan.
“I found myself ensnared in a much larger game,” she remarked.
Sala expressed concern that if the U.S. pressed for Abedini’s extradition, she might languish in prison for years, with her release dependent on the judgment of the new U.S. president, Donald Trump.
While at Evin, the guards provided Sala with a prison outfit — a gray tracksuit, blue shirt and pants, a blue hijab, and a lengthy garment known as a chador. They confiscated her glasses, leaving her nearly blind.
Her cell contained two blankets but lacked a mattress or pillow. The lights remained illuminated constantly, she recounted, preventing her from sleeping.
Only after several days, upon meticulously examining the light yellow walls of her cell inch by inch, did she discover a blood stain, markings that seemed to indicate the days, and the word “freedom” in Farsi.
She was blindfolded during nearly daily sessions of intense interrogation, where she faced a wall, she explained.
Her interrogator spoke impeccable English and indicated familiarity with Italy by inquiring if she favored Roman or Neapolitan pizza crust.
Occasionally, she was allowed to speak with her parents and boyfriend back in Italy, she mentioned, and when her mother disclosed details to reporters about her condition in prison, the interrogator warned Sala that because of those comments, her detention would be prolonged.
“Their strategy is to instill hope, only to exploit that hope to break you,” Sala said.
Through a narrow gap in her cell door, she reported hearing cries, sounds of retching, footsteps, and banging that resembled someone running and banging their head against the door.
“I feared that if they didn’t take me out, I would similarly end up like them,” Sala said. She worried that prolonged detention would leave her, “a shadow of a person, not a person.”
On January 8, Sala boarded a flight back home, and shortly thereafter, Italy released Abedini. Her release was partly facilitated by Elon Musk, as two Iranian officials noted. “I played a minor role,” Musk later commented on his social platform, X.
Sala expressed a strong desire to resume her professional pursuits.
“I am eager to return to my role as a journalist,” she stated. “To convey someone else’s narrative.”
Her experience has resonated deeply, particularly among journalists wishing to visit Iran.
“Clearly, I will not be revisiting Iran,” Sala declared. “At least while the Islamic Republic is in power.”
