The Iranian authorities have released the Italian citizen Alessia Piperno, detained in September in the Central Asian country, as announced Thursday by the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who highlighted the «intense diplomatic work» that led to her release.
«After intense diplomatic work, our compatriot Alessia Piperno has been released today by the Iranian authorities and is preparing to return to Italy,» Meloni said on her account on the social network Twitter. «I want to thank everyone who helped bring Alessia back to her family,» he added.
Piperno was detained in September, her father reported on the social network Facebook, where he said the family had not heard from her since September 28. «This morning she called us. She was crying and said she was in prison in Tehran,» detailed the young woman’s father, who runs a travel blog.
Iranian authorities have not explained the reasons for Piperno’s arrest, but connected it to the demonstrations over the death in custody of young Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, arrested in Tehran for allegedly wearing the veil incorrectly. According to the daily ‘La Repubblica’, the Italian citizen was incarcerated in Evin prison.
For his part, the spokesman for the non-governmental organization Amnesty International in Italy, Riccardo Noury, has shown his «enormous satisfaction» for the announcement. «We are very happy for Alessia, who will return very soon to Italy. It is the only good news to come from Iran since September 16,» he said, referring to the date of Amini’s death.
He stressed that these have been «weeks marked by a furious repression» by the Iranian security forces, «with 250 demonstrators killed». «It is good that at least for Alessia this nightmare is over,» he said.
«We ask the Italian government to continue to monitor the human rights situation in Iran because it is clear that it has reached a catastrophic level,» Noury concluded in statements to the Italian news agency AdnKronos.
