sought to increase the international pressure on the Iranian government over its treatment of Rezaian, whose 365 days in prison far surpass the record for any Western journalist held by the Islamic Republic.
The newspaper's filings before the council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention paint a portrait of sustained physical and psychological abuse of The Post's Tehran correspondent, including months of solitary confinement, grueling interrogations and inadequate medical treatment for Rezaian's deteriorating health.
His Iranian captors committed gross violations of international norms by refusing to publicly explain the reasons for Rezaian's arrest or to allow him to review any evidence to support vague accusations of espionage against him, company officials said in papers filed Wednesday in New York.
"These human rights violations are compounded by the fact that Rezaian's detention appears to have been used as leverage by a certain faction of the Iranian Government in the long-running nuclear negotiations with the United States and other nations — a diplomatic dialogue wholly unrelated to Rezaian, and over which he has no control," the petition states.
The Post requested "urgent action" by the U.N. body to declare Iran's treatment of Rezaian in violation of the country's international treaty obligations. In formally appealing to the United Nations for the first time in Rezaian's year-long captivity, the newspaper says it is seeking to increase international pressure on the Islamic Republic to release the journalist, acknowledging that a year of continuous diplomatic and private outreach to Iranian officials has yet to bear fruit.
"For the past year, Jason has endured extensive physical mistreatment and psychological abuse, and we are deeply concerned for his welfare," said Post Publisher Fred Ryan. "Jason is being deprived of his basic human rights, and we are asking the U.N. Working Group to render an opinion to Iran and the international community that Jason's detention is unlawful and that he should be released immediately."
The filing of the 40-page U.N. petition comes on the first anniversary of Rezaian's arrest, in a week when Iranian officials suggested that the trial portion of his ordeal could soon be ending. On Tuesday, President Obama repeated a vow to win Rezaian's release, telling U.S. war veterans in a speech that the United States was "not going to relent until we bring home our Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran." U.S. officials are also seeking the releases of two other detained Americans — former Marine Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini — as well as Iran's cooperation in investigating the disappearance of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished during a trip to Iran in 2007.
Rezaian, 39, an Iranian immigrant's son who possesses U.S. and Iranian passports, was arrested along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, at the couple's Tehran home on July 22, 2014. At the time of his arrest, Rezaian had been working for two years as The Post's Tehran correspondent and had been granted press credentials by the Iranian government as a foreign correspondent.
Although the Iranian Revolutionary Court that oversees the case has made no public pronouncement about the charges against Rezaian, Iranian news media have reported that the California-born correspondent is being tried for espionage and engaging in "propaganda against the establishment" — accusations that Post officials have rejected as patently false.
The papers filed by The Post on Wednesday offer new details into Rezaian's arrest and imprisonment, revealing that Iranian authorities abruptly broke down the door of the couple's home and seized computers, notes, passports, books and other personal effects. Rezaian's wife was later released on bail, as were two journalist friends who were arrested the same evening. But for Rezaian, the ordeal was just beginning.
The correspondent eventually was taken to Iran's Evin Prison, a facility long associated by human-rights groups with torture and abuse. There, he was kept in solitary confinement and "relentlessly interrogated" while deprived of sleep and essential medical care, The Post's petition asserts.
"He has been humiliated, mistreated, and deprived of even the most basic facilities," the document states. "[A]t various points in his detention, he has even been denied access to a bathroom."
Iranian officials refused for weeks to allow Rezaian to have contact with outsiders, including his wife, family or Swiss diplomatic officials who represent U.S. consular interests in Iran. Long deprived of medicine for high-blood pressure and other ailments, Rezaian began to suffer from chronic infections and lost nearly 50 pounds, The Post said, citing accounts from family members who were eventually permitted brief visits with him.
"Rezaian's psychological well-being and physical health have severely declined," the petition states, "and his condition worsens with each day in confinement."
The newspaper further accuses Iran of violating international treaties and its own constitution with an arrest and detention that were "riddled with due-process violations." As a signatory to the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran pledged to guarantee basic rights to those accused of criminal offenses, including the right to be informed of the reasons for an arrest and the right to a fair and speedy trial.
"He has been deprived of due process and denied his rights to counsel of his choosing and to consular visitation," The Post said in its petition to the Working Group, which investigates allegations of unjust detention. "Nearly five months of detention passed before Rezaian was charged with any crime, and to this day, the Government of Iran has failed to publicly disclose the charges against him."
Lawyers for The Post acknowledged they had no direct proof that Rezaian's detention is related to Iran's recently concluded nuclear talks with the United States and five other world powers. But the petition contends that the journalist's "arbitrary and unlawful" confinement can "only be viewed as an attempt to punish and silence and him, and perhaps also to use him as some form of leverage" in the ongoing diplomatic disputes with the West.
The petition's wording echoes comments earlier in the week by Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, who held open the possibility that Rezaian's continued confinement was effectively a hostage-taking.
"Why is he being held? What are the conditions that are being put on his release? What are the Iranians expecting in exchange for his release?" Baron asked during an appearance Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program. "The answers to those questions really determine whether he is a hostage or not. What we do know is he is being held unjustly and he has been held unjustly for a year."
Scholars and human-rights experts familiar with Iran's past handling of high-profile detentions said last week's nuclear accord may have helped lay the groundwork for Rezaian's release. But still uncertain is how quickly he could be set free and, indeed, whether the journalist's confinement was related to the nuclear dispute or some still-murkier conflict between Iranian factions.
Haleh Esfandiari, a former Iranian journalist who was spent 110 days in the same Evin Prison, said Rezaian's arrest was likely an attempt by hardline opponents of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to embarrass the moderate leader just as he sought rapprochement with the West. Now that the talks have ended, Rezaian could be freed, though perhaps not so quickly, she said.
"Letting Jason go immediately would be seen as a sign of weakness, especially among the opponents of the nuclear deal in Iran," said Esfandiari, director emirta of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Other Iran experts said exerting more international pressure on Iran could finally persuade Iran's leaders to relent, though it still might take time to coax a decision from Iran's famously opaque legal system.
"You have a judicial process that is anything but fair or independent," said Faraz Sanei, a researcher and Middle East expert with Human Rights Watch. "That — and not the official government line touting Iran's supposedly fair and impartial administration of justice — is the ugly reality of the process Jason and many others have been subjected to."
