Who is CECILIA SALA, whose Arrest in Iran has Caused a Stir in the Journalism World

Twenty nine-year-old Italian journalist Cecilia Sala (born 1995) was arrested by Iran on December 19, 2024, but information about her arrest was made public on 27 December. Cecilia Sala specializes in political and war journalism, both as a writer and a war correspondent. 

Cecilia was in Iran on a regular journalist visa and published several reports on the changing landscape in Iran after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

She is a graduate in International Economics from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Since 2019, Ms. Sala works for Il Foglio; she is also a writer for the Huffington Post, Mondadori and the podcast company Chora Media. While working for Il Foglio, she has been a foreign correspondent reporting from Venezuela and Chile, among other places, as well as a war correspondent from Afghanistan (2021 Taliban offensive) and Ukraine (Russo-Ukrainian War). She also reported from Iran before and during the 2024 Iran-Israel conflict.

Ms. Sala has nearly half a million followers on Instagram and is a regular guest on Italian talk shows. In 2015, she began working as a correspondent and reporter for Vice, then as a professional journalist for the La7 TV program Servizio Pubblico in 2016. She later wrote for L'Espresso and Vanity Fair, and has also worked for RAI, Fremantle Media and the La7 TV program Otto e Mezzo.

Cecilia Sala has been reporting from Tehran since 13 December 2024, covering how the country has changed over the past tumultuous year, when military conflict rocked the region and Iran ushered in new leadership with its President Masoud Pezeshkian in July. In her coverage, Ms. Sala described how many women are no longer wearing the hijab in defiance of the country's leadership, and she interviewed an Iranian stand-up comedian who was jailed in Iran.

E' ancora detenuta nel carcere di #Evin in #Iran la giornalista italiana #CeciliaSala. Per chiederne il rilascio circola sui social #FreeCecilia. E il padre ringrazia tutti per l'attenzione nei confonti della figlia pic.twitter.com/aXgnx5ayBX

— Tg2 (@tg2rai) December 29, 2024

She has covered the crisis in Venezuela, protests in Chile, Iran, the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, and the war in Ukraine. She has worked on the editorial team of Otto e Mezzo, for SkyTG24, with the media company Vice, with Rai, and with Fremantle Media. For the Huffington Post, she co-produced with Chiara Lali the podcast "Polvere", dedicated to the murder of Marta Russo. The podcast was adapted into a book of the same name, published by Mondadori in 2021. For the same publishing house, in 2023, she published 'L'incendio', a report on a generation spanning Iran, Ukraine, and Afghanistan.

Cecilia Sala was due to board her flight back to Italy on 20 December 2024, but she did not show up at Tehran’s airport. Italian Ambassador Paola Amadei visited Sala in prison on 27 December 2024. According to the foreign ministry, Sala was allowed to make two phone calls to her relatives. 

Ms. Sala is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which mostly holds detainees facing security charges. It has long been criticised by Western rights groups and was blacklisted by the US government in 2018 for “serious human rights abuses”.