Iran's jailing of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala has nothing to do with journalism

Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested by police in Tehran on December 19, according to Italy's foreign ministry. Reuters

It is only natural that the reaction to Iran’s decision to hold Cecilia Sala, a visiting foreign correspondent, is to assert that journalism is not a crime.

One of Sala’s editors, Claudio Cerasa, did exactly that, as he called for her release from Evin Prison. Ms Sala was travelling in Iran reporting on a country “she knows and loves” and Mr Cerasa now asks for support for the campaign to “bring Cecilia Sala home”.

The supporters of Ms Sala are exactly right. She had, after all, obtained a valid journalism visa to carry out reporting in Tehran, something that is not easy to do and comes with a tight bracket of restrictions.

The point of her detention is unlikely to have much to do with her actual activities while in Iran, still less any idea that she would have committed a crime. Calling out the motives for the arrest is something that subordinates to the tag line that will probably be most effective in advancing the cause of her release. It is something seen many times before in the attempts to free other journalists and diplomats from Iranian prisons.

Ms Sala was held three days after Mahdi Sadeghi, a US-based engineer, pled not guilty in a Boston court on charges of violating US export controls and sanctions. The twist here is that the allegations of working to supply components within the US semi-conductor supply chain came after Mr Sadeghi’s alleged Iranian handler was arrested in Italy.

People attend a peaceful sit-in in front of the Turin Prefecture to demand the immediate release of the Italian journalist Cecilia Sala. EPA

As Sala packed her bags on a reporting trip to see Iranian society up close, she is unlikely to have contemplated the subterranean scramble for supplies to deliver these advances

A dual US-Iranian citizen and the head of an Iranian navigation systems manufacturer, Mohammad Abedini, was held on allegations that a Swiss front company was being used to funnel electronic components to Iran’s war machine. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was allegedly the primary customer of Abedini’s company, Sanat Danesh Rahpooyan Aflak Co, which made the navigation system used in its military drone programme.

Italian newspapers reported at the weekend that the diplomatic talks promised by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to free Ms Sala with the Tehran authorities were already focused on a prisoner swap for Abedini.

The experience of the exchange of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison after a conviction on spying charges but then swapped for intelligence operative, Assadollah Assadi, hangs over Italy’s negotiations. Assadi had orchestrated a multi-country Iranian bomb plot using sleeper agents across Europe.

Or the exchange of Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus who was freed from Evin for the return of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity for his role in the 1988 regime prison massacres.

The chink of light that the Boston court case throws open is an underground battle for parts and sanctions-busting advanced technology that has spread around the world. This is the underbelly of the global conflicts that demarcate between the rival geopolitical blocs. Israel used a technological poison pill to sabotage Hezbollah when the group’s pagers and walkie-talkies exploded earlier this year. Thousands of operatives were removed from the picture in one fell swoop.

Key to this were the electronic smuggling through front companies and false invoicing that created a supplier network faked by Mossad to fulfil orders from Hezbollah.

A Russian serviceman fires a 9M113 Konkurs wire-guided anti-tank missile at an undisclosed location. AP

When Russia took the initiative in the days after US president-elect Donald Trump prevailed in the American election by targeting a Ukrainian city with the advanced Oreshnik missile, the Kremlin claimed a leap forward in its own arsenal. The multiple warhead missile is developed on the base of a nuclear capable weapon the Russians had never deployed, RS-26 Rubezh.

Analysis supplied by the Ukrainians said that the weapons manufacturers involved in the programme have recruited engineers experienced in working on German and Japanese metalworking systems. The Ukrainians even named a military fare in Russia earlier this year at which eight foreign suppliers were offering these systems.

Efforts to ensure that western supply lines are not leaching chips and other technologies back towards adversaries such as Russia are under constant pressure. A 2022 report by the Rusi think tank found that almost all of Russia’s modern military hardware is dependent upon complex electronics imported from the US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Israel and China. It cited a detailed breakdown of the Russian Aqueduct military radios, which had parts from almost all those countries.

With North Korea’s entry into the conflict through the supply of forces engaged in the offensive to take back lost territory in the Kursk region, the quid pro quo alleged in western circles is advances in Pyongyang’s missile arsenal that haven’t been seen in decades. Where once Russia had joined the action through the UN Security Council to contain Iran’s missile proliferation and development activities, reports now suggest that Iranian ballistic supplies are going to supply Moscow’s war effort.

Advances in hypersonic technology, stealth and 6G-enabled airborne combat are the emerging legacy of the past three years of conflict. As Sala packed her bags on a reporting trip to see Iranian society up close, she is unlikely to have contemplated the subterranean scramble for supplies to deliver these advances. Yet that was where the trap she fell into appears to have been triggered.