The Washington Post bureau chief has been detained longer than any journalist in Iran – but on what charges Iran refuses to specify. How did it get this far?

Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist whose conviction on espionage charges was announced this weekend, has been detained longer than any other western journalist in Iran, possibly an unwitting pawn in a struggle between doves and hawks in the Islamic republic.

The 39-year-old, who holds dual Iranian and US citizenship, was arrested at his home in Tehran in July 2014 along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also a journalist, and two friends, an Iranian-American couple. The two friends, who are believed to have close ties to the family of the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, were released shortly after their arrest. Salehi was released on bail in October and is facing a separate trial.

Rezaian was held on unspecified charges for more than seven months before appearing in court. He was kept sequestered for most of his time in jail with little access to his lawyers and family. In March, he was granted access to a lawyer, though not the one his family chose to represent him.

His trial started in May when he appeared before a hardline judge behind closed doors on charges of espionage, collecting confidential information and spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic.

The judge has yet to pronounce a sentence, but the reporter, who has worked in Iran since 2008 and has been the Post’s properly accredited bureau chief in Tehran since 2012, could face up to 20 years now that he has been found guilty.

The Washington Post’s editor, Martin Baron, called the guilty verdict “an outrageous injustice” and “contemptible”. “Iran has behaved unconscionably throughout this case, but never more so than with this indefensible decision by a Revolutionary Court to convict an innocent journalist of serious crimes after a proceeding that unfolded in secret, with no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing,” he said in a statement.

Iran does not recognise dual citizenship and treated Rezaian as solely Iranian. The country’s intelligence authorities have a deep suspicion of dual citizens and have arrested a number in recent years.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Evin prison in Tehran Photograph: Ulrich Baumgarten/Getty Images

Iran also has a history of jailing journalists working for the foreign press. Those previously jailed include Maziar Bahari, whose ordeal was the subject of Rosewater, a 2014 film by US comedian Jon Stewart.

Rezaian’s mother, Mary, was in Tehran during the trial but was not allowed to attend. Reporters Without Borders, or Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said this year that it was “no coincidence” Rezaian was jailed at the time when Iran’s moderate forces were trying to reach a nuclear accord with the west amid opposition from hardliners at home.

Rezaian’s brother Ali, who met with Barack Obama in April to press his brother’s case, has repeatedly criticised the decision by the Iranian judiciary to hold the trial behind closed doors and has said his brother lost 18kg (40lb) while in jail.



Iran has yet to explain the espionage charges. Ali Rezaian said two pieces of evidence against his brother were a visa application he had lodged for Salehi to travel to the US, and a letter he sent to Obama’s 2008 White House transition team offering help to improve bilateral relations between Iran and the US.

The Washington Post has repeatedly accused Iran of imposing “Kafkaesque restrictions” on his case, which was presided over by Abolghassem Salavati, a judge notorious for issuing heavy sentences. Local and foreign media were denied access to the trial.

Martin Baron, the Post’s executive editor, condemned the detention and trial as “shameful acts of injustice” and said “there is no justice in this system, not an ounce of it”.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, who described Rezaian as a fair reporter, said Rezaian was accused of “a very serious offence” but that he hoped he would be cleared of the charges against him.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mary Rezaian, mother of detained Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, right, and Jason’s wife Yeganeh leave a Revolutionary Court building in Tehran. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

Zarif said in April: “He is an Iranian citizen. It is unfortunate that some over-zealous, low-level operative tried to take advantage of him. And I don’t go into further detail because it’s a pending case before the court. And I hope that he will be cleared of that charge.”

While in jail, Rezaian was attacked by Iran’s hardline media, which tried to build a cause against him. Unattributed sources alleged he worked as a spy while reporting in the country for the Post. A Fars news agency report alleged that Rezaian provided economic and industrial data to the US government.

Many analysts believe Rezaian was caught up in a high-level feud between Rouhani’s administration and its internal opponents. RSF said the case was being used in an Iranian power struggle.

Rezaian had been working in Iran with appropriate accreditation. His prolonged detention brought much embarrassment for Rouhani, whose administration is seeking to improve relations with the west, especialy after the landmark nuclear agreement struck in July. After his election victory in 2013, the Post was the first international newspaper to which Rouhani turned to publish his opinion piece in which he set out his global vision. Nevertheless, he remained largely quiet in defence of Rezaian, whose detention has been widely condemned internationally.

Iran’s conservative-dominated judiciary, which had full control over Rezaian’s case, acts independently of Rouhani’s government. But the president can use his position as the public face of the Islamic republic to defend those in prison unjustly. Rouhani is loathed by hardliners because of his efforts to create greater social freedoms at home and engage with the international community. They believe his administration gave away too much for too little in the nuclear negotiations.

There are at least two other Americans in jail in Iran, including pastor Saeed Abedini and former US marine Amir Hekmati, who has been held since 2011.



Profile: Jason Rezaian

Jason Rezaian was born in Marin County, California, three years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. His mother, Mary, is American and his late father, Taghi, was an Iranian who had emigrated to the US two decades before the reporter’s birth.

He attended college in New York and later got involved in his father’s carpet-selling business before pursuing a career in journalism. He wrote for a number of US publications, including a regular Iran column for the San Francisco Chronicle. His interest in his father’s homeland led him to apply for an Iranian passport and move to Tehran in 2008.

According to his family, Rezaian was particularly intent in showing a better image of Iran worldwide, especially to his fellow Americans. “He wanted people to know that Iranians have the same aspirations and hopes and dreams for their families that people all around the west and everywhere else do, and to get rid of this one-dimensional view of Iran,” his brother Ali has said.



Rezaian was an accredited journalist by Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance and had permission to operate in Iran. He was always careful not to cross red lines, his family said, and his last article before arrest was about baseball in Iran. He had travelled to Vienna to cover the Iranian nuclear negotiations several months before that.



He joined the Washington Post in 2012 as its Tehran correspondent. A year later, he married the Iranian journalist Yeganeh Salehi, who wrote for the UAE-based National newspaper.

