Iran TV Anchor Releases Statement on Her Detention in US

Iran’s Press TV anchor Marzieh Hashemi, who arrived in Tehran after spending 10 days in a jail in the United States without any charge, released a statement on Saturday.

Hashemi, 59, arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on Wednesday night. She issued the statement before speaking to Iranian and foreign reporters at the Press TV Headquarters in Tehran on Saturday.

The journalist is an American-born Muslim convert who has lived in Iran for years. She was detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in Missouri on January 13 while in the US to visit her ill brother and other family members.

Here is the transcript of Hashemi’s statement, according to Press TV website:

Thank you for coming today. Because of the legal sensitivities around my detention I will be giving a statement in English followed by questions from the media. A Farsi translation of my speech is available for the Iranian press.

First I would like to congratulate the Leader of the Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei and the Iranian nation on the fortieth anniversary of the revolution.

I would like to thank everyone at Press TV for their support during my detention. The CEO, Mr Jebeli, who has stood by me, and every single colleague, from the newsroom, website, studio, and every department – far too many to mention – who have shown solidarity with me. Thank you.

I would like to thank Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, for his public comments about my detention. I know his were one of many that were made.

I would also like to sincerely thank the tens of thousands of people across the world, whom I have never met, who mobilized to raise awareness of my imprisonment.

Across North America, Europe, and the rest of the world, including in Iran, there was an organic grassroots mobilization, of mostly young people, with many different political views, who all came together to show solidarity.

But no thanks to the many Islamic centers in the West, because most of them didn’t play the smallest part in this movement, including those mosques who should be representing an Islam that believes in resistance and fighting for the oppressed abroad that are not doing their responsibility and instead trying to dissuade people from important political activism in the West.

This brings us to the agenda to depoliticize Muslims in the West. The atmosphere of Islamophobia is being used as an excuse for Muslims to not use their voice to speak up for the oppressed as is the core of their religion. And it is this very lack of speaking up for others that’s taken our voice and our rights away.

Laws like the Material-Witness which have been passed without any strong opposition from the Muslim and black communities who are the main victims of such acts.

For those who are not familiar with the Material-Witness act, under which I was imprisoned and treated like a criminal without a single charge, it is a highly controversial law. For almost two decades, this law has been used to systematically target innocent Muslims in America, including political activists.