Washington D.C – CBS News, Jan. 20, 2026
When Abdolreza “Reza” Valizadeh returned to Iran in the spring of 2024, it was the first time he had set foot in his home country in 15 years. The veteran journalist, who had spent more than a decade in exile, traveled to Iran to see and care for his aging parents.
Six months later, he was in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
Valizadeh, a 49-year-old dual U.S.-Iranian citizen and longtime critic of Iran’s security establishment, was arrested on Sept. 22, 2024, by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). His detention, detailed in a petition filed Tuesday by his attorney with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, comes amid Iran’s sweeping crackdown on protests across the country, and as tensions with Washington simmer.
The State Department formally designated Valizadeh as “wrongfully detained” in May 2025, placing his case under the authority of the U.S. government’s hostage affairs office. Valizadeh is one of at least four Iranian-Americans currently held in Iran, including 70-year-old Kamran Hekmati and at least one other septuagenarian, a woman, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News.
“In lodging this petition to the UN, alongside pulling every lever of power available to us in D.C., we are committed to bringing attention to Reza’s case, not only to secure his release, but to send an unequivocal message that the targeting of U.S. citizens abroad will not be tolerated,” Ryan Fayhee, counsel to Valizadeh and a partner at the law firm Akin Gump, said in a statement.
“Every day that Reza remains behind bars, the Iranian regime is emboldened to target Americans who dare to advocate for truth, justice, and a better future for the Iranian people,” Fayhee said.
