Washington Post seeks UN help in freeing reporter

Jason Rezaian was arrested over a year ago and held for months without charges in solitary confinement at Iran’s Evin Prison.

Ali Rezaian, brother of Jason Rezaian (in framed pictured) who is the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, at a news conference in Washington on July 22, 2015. The Washington Post has filed an urgenShow more

WASHINGTON // The Washington Post has filed an urgent petition with the United Nations in the hopes that it will pressure Iran to release journalist Jason Rezaian, the newspaper's executive editor said on Wednesday.

Rezaian was arrested over a year ago along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is The National's Tehran correspondent. She was released on bail in October but he has been held for months without charges in solitary confinement at Iran's Evin Prison.

The Post's lawyers and his family say that Rezaian has lost 23 kilograms since his arrest and remains under severe psychological strain. His supporters had hoped that the conclusion of United States-led talks on Iran's nuclear programme last week would pave the way for his release, speculating that he might have been detained by Iran as leverage in the negotiations.

"Every aspect of this case – his incarceration, his trial, the conditions of his imprisonment – has been a disgraceful violation of human rights. And it violates common decency," said the Post's executive editor, Martin Baron.

US officials said that they insisted upon keeping the nuclear talks separate from discussions about Rezaian and other US prisoners held in Iran in case the negotiations faltered – a tactic that Rezaian’s brother, Ali, said he supported.

However, US secretary of state John Kerry has said that US officials raised the issue of captive Americans with Iran persistently during the nuclear deliberations. But despite this, Rezaian remains in jail without another trial date publicly scheduled.

The Post petition was filed with a UN working group that focuses on unlawful detentions. The newspaper's lawyers said that Iran has been responsive to about a third of the cases filed with the working group in the past decade. Jay Kennedy, the newspaper's general counsel, said that the tactic hadn't been tried sooner because "we never expected his detention to last this long".

In Tehran, deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that cases of “imprisoned citizens” were discussed with their American counterparts during the nuclear talks. He said “humanitarian” reasons had motivated the discussion but did not elaborate.

It was the first confirmation by the Iranians of any talks that may have involved the fate of Rezaian and other US prisoners in Iran – former US marine Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, and retired FBI agent Robert Levinson.

* Associated Press