Arrested Italian reporter observed Iran's Hijab law, journalist says

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00:00Yes, Stuart. I met Cecilia on December 16. That's three days before she was arrested and

00:06we met for dinner and we had an amazing conversation about what she was planning to do

00:09in Iran. And according to my knowledge, she had done everything through the legal procedure. She

00:15had submitted a request. She had met with the Iranian embassy in Rome and she had submitted

00:19her request long ago to come to Tehran. And the thing is, Stuart, if you're coming from a media

00:28in Europe or anywhere in the world that doesn't have a representation in Tehran,

00:32you have to go through a mediatory agency. So that's what exactly Cecilia did. She came to Iran

00:38with a mediatory agency and she had been coordinating her activities through the agency.

00:44And when we met, she said that she was going to report on the facts and realities on the ground

00:50and she was planning to do a very balanced coverage. She said that the image that the

00:56European outlets give of Iran is very inaccurate. It's like people being tortured 24-7, 85 million

01:03people being tortured 24-7 by the government. So she said that I'm here to rectify this image,

01:07to give out and present a very balanced image of Iran. And that's what she was planning to do.

01:12She was planning to interview regular people, ordinary Iranian people about the situation,

01:17economic situation, the hijab law, everything that is going on in the country. And she was

01:23going to do the good and the bad. She wasn't planning to do some horrific reporting or present

01:31a very disastrous image of Iran. So we were speaking just before we came on air, you were

01:37telling me that there is some speculation there that she was just arrested for not wearing her

01:41hijab. Yes, but when we met, she had her scarf on and she was trying to keep her hijab on at

01:49all times. There may have been times that the scarf fell and she didn't know, but she was very

01:55aware of the situation. She wanted to respect the Iranian law. She wanted to respect the community

02:00of the religious people who want tourists to observe the hijab law. And she respected that

02:07very much actually. And her interview requests, so far as I'm aware, were not something that is

02:16very weird or unusual. She contacted the Iranian foreign ministry to interview a couple of

02:23diplomats and she didn't contact the foreign ministry autonomously. All the procedure was

02:29ongoing through the mediatory agency. And when we met, the translator from the mediatory agency was

02:35also present. So we didn't meet in complete isolation or we didn't discuss some controversial

02:43out-of-the-blue stuff. Everything was coordinated. The translator was sitting right there

02:48and she could hear everything because the translator that was assigned

02:52to Chechilya did not know Italian. She only knew English.

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