Press TV anchor Marzieh Hashemi jailed in US on unspecified charges

Actually there is no need to imagine. It's happening already.

A dispatch from PressTV, Iranian press service

Dateline: Wed Jan 16, 2019

Press TV anchor and journalist Marzieh Hashemi

  • Marzieh Hashemi, a journalist and anchor working for Iran’s English-language Press TV television news network, has been detained and imprisoned in the United States for unspecified reasons.

American-born Hashemi, most famous for anchoring news programs and presenting shows for Press TV, was detained upon arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, her family and friends said.

Press TV has learned that she was transferred by the FBI to a detention facility in Washington, DC. The US officials have so far refused to provide any reasons for her apprehension either to her or her family.

 

The Associated Press (AP) said a call to the FBI rang unanswered early on Wednesday morning. The bureau did not immediately respond to a written request for comment, it added.

Hashemi, born Melanie Franklin, had arrived in the US to visit her ill brother and other family members.

Her relatives were unable to contact her, and she was allowed to contact her daughter only two days after her arrest.

PressTV-Press TV issues statement on anchor’s detention in US

The Iranian television news network releases a statement about the situation of its anchorwoman Marzieh Hashemi who is being held in a US detention center.

Mistreatment in US jail

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ashemi, who has been living in Iran for years and is a Muslim convert, has told her daughter that she was handcuffed and shackled and was being treated like a criminal.

The journalist also said that she had her hijab forcibly removed, and was photographed without her headscarf upon arrival at the prison.

Hashemi has only been allowed to wear a T-shirt, and is currently using another one to cover her head.

Furthermore, she has been offered only pork as meal - which is forbidden under Islamic law - and even denied bread and any other halal food after refusing to consume the meat.

Hashemi told her daughter that the only food she has had over the past two days has been a packet of crackers.

Hashemi’s family members and media activists have launched a social media campaign with the hashtags #FreeMarziehHashemi and #Pray4MarziehHashemi in support of the detained journalist.

APPENDIX

THE US ACTS AS THE AGGRIEVED PARTY, PACKS A GREAT DEAL OF HATRED FOR IRAN, BUT IT HAS NOT BEEN THE VICTIM, BUT THE VICTIMISER.

The US—as we know—has a long history of sordid and murderous meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, and for the most repulsive and immoral motives—enriching the superrich. Here's The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur—a liberal—admitting that much.

Published on Aug 19, 2013

"Sixty years ago this Monday, on August 19, 1953, modern Iranian history took a critical turn when a U.S.- and British-backed coup overthrew the country's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The event's reverberations have haunted its orchestrators over the years, contributing to the anti-Americanism that accompanied the Shah's ouster in early 1979, and even influencing the Iranians who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran later that year. But it has taken almost six decades for the U.S. intelligence community to acknowledge openly that it was behind the controversial overthrow. Published here today -- and on the website of the National Security Archive, which obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act -- is a brief excerpt from The Battle for Iran, an internal report prepared in the mid-1970s by an in-house CIA historian...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.


 

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