Shirin Ebadi: Italian Journalist Will Not Be the Last Hostage of the Islamic Republic

Shirin Ebadi, head of the Center for Human Rights Defenders and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, emphasized on Saturday, December 29, regarding the arrest of "Cecilia Sala," an Italian journalist detained in Tehran, that "if there is no fundamental change in the approach of Western countries towards the Islamic Republic, Ms. Sala will not be the last hostage." Cecilia Sala was arrested by the Islamic Republic's government forces on December 20. However, the news of her arrest was not announced by the Islamic Republic's officials. Instead, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced her arrest in a statement on Friday, January 7. The Italian Ministry did not mention the reason for the delay in announcing this arrest, stating that for certain considerations, this issue was not made public earlier. Ebadi stated on her Instagram page that "hostage-taking and extortion is an ancient tradition of the Islamic Republic that has been going on for years," adding that the Italian government, which "had concealed this illegal arrest and thought it could free its citizen through dialogue and negotiation, ultimately concluded that it needed to publish this news." Regarding the arrest of Mohammad Abedini, "an Iranian collaborator of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Italy," she added that this situation "created the possibility that the Islamic Republic, following its ancient custom, might use the hostage-taking of an Italian to prevent Abedini's extradition to the United States. This analysis has been presented by various individuals, but the naive hope of being able to negotiate with the Islamic Republic under the new government has once again led the West into another crisis." Ebadi also noted in her statement that "it has not been long since the murder of Jamshid Sharmard, a dual-national prisoner, Cecile Kohler, a French citizen, and her husband have been in prison since two years ago, and Ahmadreza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish citizen, has been in prison for about eight years facing a death sentence," adding that "the Islamic Republic exchanged other prisoners it had taken hostage with individuals like Hamid Noury, who was not an opponent of the Islamic Republic but was accused and convicted of war crimes in an independent court in Europe." Many political experts say that the Islamic Republic arrests foreign citizens, especially dual nationals, using baseless accusations and employs them as political bargaining tools, effectively taking these citizens hostage. The head of the Center for Human Rights Defenders and Nobel Peace Prize laureate posed the question, "What does this mean for Western countries and their civil society?" She added, "If Ms. Sala, with the support of the Italian government, and Ms. Kohler, with the support of the French government, are still in prison, countless political prisoners in the Islamic Republic are at risk of murder, organized abuse, and torture without international support." She declared that "the Islamic Republic has taken more than 80 million Iranians hostage" and emphasized, "One cannot negotiate with such a government."