Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter detained in Iran for nearly eight months, is the victim of internal rivalries between powerful senior figures in the Islamic republic, with hardliners accusing him of gaining privileged access to information through the nephew of the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani.
The Iranian intelligence authorities have been trying to build a case against Rezaian in an effort to undermine Rouhani’s moderate administration, which favours better relations with the west, the Guardian has learned.
Hardliners have claimed that the Iranian-American reporter had access to sensitive information through contacts with Rouhani’s nephew, Esmail Samavi, who works for the president’s office as a public relations manager.
Rezaian’s family say the allegations are unfounded. “If they [the Iranian intelligence authorities] are trying to go after the Rouhani family, then they’ve held the wrong person for eight months,” said Jason’s brother, Ali, the family spokesman.
Ali said his brother did not have a relationship – personal or professional – with a member of the president’s family.
“Jason has never had any direct communication with anyone in the Rouhani family,” he said. “He wasn’t friends with anyone in the Rouhani family. He wasn’t associates with anyone in the family. He wasn’t even in contact with anyone in the family.”
Rezaian was detained in July 2014 after security forces raided his home in Tehran and arrested him, his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also a journalist, and two friends, an Iranian-American couple with close ties to Rouhani’s family.
After those arrests, opposition sources reported that security officials had also sought to arrest Samavi in connection with Rezaian’s case but did not succeed because of his high-profile role in the presidential office.
The Iranian-American couple were released shortly after their arrest, and Salehi was released on bail in October, but Rezaian has been held ever since.
Several sources, speaking to the Guardian, confirmed Rezaian has become caught up in the high-level feud between Rouhani’s government and its internal opponents.
Rezaian, has been kept incommunicado for the most of his time in jail with little access to his lawyers and family. He was finally charged in December, but the exact nature of the changes has still not been made public.
Last month, Hamid Rasaei, an influential hardline MP said in a statement published on his website that Rezaian had been accused of espionage, and told reporters in Tehran that Rezaian had made a full confession on camera.
“Under the cover of their work as reporters, Jason Rezaian and his wife infiltrated some of the most sensitive places at the president’s office,” Rasaei wrote.
“Which individual helped Jason Rezaian bypass security barriers and gain access to materials for espionage?” the parliamentarian asked before hinting that he was referring to Samavi, whom he referred to only by his initials.
“Who is preventing ES, who is a manager in the president’s office, from being called in for questioning?”
Omid Memarian, an Iranian journalist based in New York and a friend of the Washington Post reporter, said Rezaian had never met Samavi. He said the Rezaian was permitted to attend a press conference at the president’s office just once during his eight years reporting in Iran, and he wasn’t allowed to ask any questions. Rezaian was also permitted to accompany Rouhani during a provincial visit last year, but Memarian said he was not on the president’s plane and did not have privileged access.
“It is quite clear from Rasaei’s remarks that the reasons for the arrest, the interrogations, and the forced confessions were all centred around building a case against Hassan Rouhani’s nephew,” Memarian told the Guardian. “Jason is a victim of the competition between different Iranian intelligence organisations, and a fabricated case against the president’s nephew. But Hassan Rouhani has preferred to maintain complete silence in this regard.”
Memarian added: “I believe it is shameful that almost everyone inside Iran’s foreign ministry and the president’s office knows that Jason’s arrest was made to make a case against Rouhani’s nephew, and they have still kept silent during all this time.”
In 2003, Memarian was himself put in prison in Iran and coerced into making a false confession, a familiar tactic used against those held on political grounds.
“Weeks of solitary confinement and psychological and physical torture eventually made me give in to demands of those who had arrested me,” he said. “In a similar position, after months of brutal solitary confinement, Jason is forced to give in to the demands of those who arrested him and confessing to things that anyone who knows him at all knows to be fabricated crimes.”
Rezaian’s detention is complicated by the fact that Iran does not recognise dual citizenship, and treats him solely as an Iranian. As a result, Rezaian has not had consular access through the Swiss embassy, which acts on behalf of American citizens in Iran because the US does not have diplomatic relations with the country.
Iranian intelligence authorities are deeply suspicious of dual citizens and have arrested a number of them in recent years on accusations of spying for foreign countries.
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 is giving away too much for too little in the current nuclear negotiations.
Hardliners also accuse Rouhani of nepotism. The president’s brother, Hossein Fereydoun, also works for him as his special adviser and is currently involved in the nuclear talks with the world’s major powers.
Iran’s judiciary, which is dominated by conservatives, acts independently of Rouhani’s government, meaning that the president’s influence on such cases in limited. But Rouhani can still use his position as the public face of the Islamic republic to defend Rezaian, which he has refrained from doing, at least so far.
Rezaian’s family and the Washington Post have recently stepped up their calls for his release, expressing deep concern that Rezaian’s case is now being reviewed by a hardline judge, Abolghassem Salavati, who has a record of handing down heavy sentences on similar cases.
At a press conference last week, Ali Rezaian said he appealed to the government in Tehran to release his brother on bail for, Nowruz, the Persian new year, which begins on 21 March.
“It’s a time for new beginnings,” Ali said, speaking at a press conference in Washington. “It’s a time for generosity and mercy.”