Journalist Jason Rezaian of ‘The Washington Post’ discusses his 544 days in an Iranian prison, what it took to get him out and what he believes should be done to help other journalists who have been wrongfully detained. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The truth is this is a problem that's getting worse, and it's affecting not only the US Government, it's affecting your government there in the UK a variety of European governments.
And this is one instance where I would say that the US is sort of far ahead of its friends and allies across the pond.
The UK Government has been incredibly deficient in dealing with these cases.
Won't talk to families, asks families to stay quiet, don't publicize these issues.
You know, this is not a secret.
When, when someone like Evan Gershkovich or myself or Nazanin, Zagari, Radcliffe are taken by these governments and then our arrests is.
Are made public by the state propaganda apparati in these places, they are doing something that is designed to be outrageous and audacious.
So, you know, there's no guidebook or recipe about how to handle these things.
But ultimately, you have to understand, as the employer, as the loved one, as the friends of someone who is being held hostage by another government, what you're trying to do is get your home government to act on their behalf.
It's not like there are good places to get arrested working as a journalist overseas, but there are few, few worse places for an American journalist to get arrested than the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country which partly inaugurated itself in 1979 by taking 66Americans hostage and holding most of them for 444 days.
This week's guest did 100 days longer than that.
Jason Rezion was the Washington Post's Tehran bureau chief when he was arrested and detained in July 2014.
In October 2015, he was convicted of on preposterous charges of espionage.
He was released in January 2016 as part of an exchange of prisoners between the US and Iran.
I'm Andrew Muller, and I spoke to Jason Rezaian on the big Interview.
Well, I will say, first of all, Jason, welcome to the Big Interview.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm a big Monocle fan.
I used to write for you guys in a different life.
It's been downhill ever since.