Iran summons Swiss ambassador over Press TV anchor's detention in US
Tehran (Basirat ):Iran has summoned the Swiss ambassador to Tehran to protest the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s "illegal" detention of Press TV news anchor Marzieh Hashemi, who had traveled to the United States to visit her family.
In a meeting on Tuesday with the Swiss envoy, director general for the Americas
at Iran’s Foreign Ministry expressed the Islamic Republic's strong protest over
the prolongation of the Iranian citizen's imprisonment, Iran's Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said.
He added that the Iranian Foreign Ministry's official handed over an official
note to the Swiss ambassador in protest at the US' detention and "inhumane and
discriminatory" behavior toward the Press TV journalist, and asked for her
"immediate and unconditional" release.
Hashemi, a 59-year-old American-born Muslim convert who has been living in Iran
for years, was detained at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in Missouri
last Sunday while she was in the US to visit her ill brother and other family
members.
She was transferred to a detention facility in Washington, DC, where she was
forced to remove her hijab and only offered food not permissible under her
Islamic values.
After days of silence, the US administration confirmed on Friday that it was
holding Hashemi in jail as a "material witness” in an unspecified case, and that
she would be released after she testified before a grand jury. She appeared in
court on Friday for the second time for a hearing session, and is slated to
appear before a grand jury for a third time on Wednesday, January 23.
Source:PressTv
