Tehran Decries Detention Of Iranian News Anchor In US - Foreign Ministry

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Tehran Decries Detention of Iranian News Anchor in US - Foreign Ministry

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday harshly decried the detention of a news anchor with Iran's international news network in the United States, accusing the latter of "inhumane behavior" and abuses toward the woman

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2019) The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday harshly decried the detention of a news anchor with Iran's international news network in the United States, accusing the latter of "inhumane behavior" and abuses toward the woman.

Earlier in the day, Press tv reported that its anchor Marzieh Hashemi, who has been working in Iran since 2008, had been detained on Sunday at an airport upon her arrival in the United States, where she planned to visit her brother and other relatives. According to the media outlet, no formal charges had been brought against her.

"The abrupt arrest of a Muslim [US] national and journalist and the US government agents' humiliating and inhumane behavior in abusing this lady, who is a practicing Muslim, are a clear example of behavior that an apartheid regime adopts against its non-white citizens," the ministry's spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, said, as quoted by the news network.

Qassemi described Hashemi's detention as "illegal," noting that her treatment in the US jail was a "blatant violation of human rights and shows the US government does not adhere to any of the principles that it uses as pretexts to attack its critics."

The spokesman demanded that the anchor be immediately released.

Following her detention, African-American Hashemi, born Melanie Franklin, was transferred to a detention facility in Washington D.C., where she reportedly had her hijab forcibly removed and was denied halal food.