{"id":182361,"date":"2019-01-19T05:40:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-19T05:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182361"},"modified":"2019-01-22T07:01:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T07:01:31","slug":"fbi-refuses-to-discuss-detention-of-american-iranian-tv-anchor-marzieh-hashemi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182361","title":{"rendered":"FBI refuses to discuss detention of American Iranian TV anchor Marzieh Hashemi"},"content":{"rendered":"
The US has jailed prominent Press TV journalist Marzieh Hashemi, an American citizen, apparently as a \u201cmaterial witness\u201d\u2013 \u2018a charge authorities use when they need a reason to arrest somebody but don\u2019t have one.\u2019 She was visiting family & filming a documentary on Black Lives Matter when she was detained at the St. Louis airport, handcuffed and shackled.<\/em><\/h5>\n
\"Marzieh<\/a>

Marzieh Hashemi. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Alison Weir — If Americans Knew Jan 17, 2019<\/h1>\n

The U.S. Justice Department and FBI continue<\/a><\/strong><\/span> to refuse to comment on the jailing of Marzieh Hashemi, documentarian and news anchor of Iran\u2019s English language station Press TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 59-year-old Hashemi, born Melanie Franklin in New Orleans, is an American citizen. She was in the U.S. filming a documentary on Black Lives Matter and visiting family\u00a0 when the FBI suddenly arrested her.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hashemi is being held in Washington DC\u2019s Correctional Treatment Facility. According to a Department of Corrections worker she is in court now, but phone calls to DC district courts failed to find her.\u00a0 (information on this will be updated as it becomes available.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Hashemi was held 48 hours before being allowed to contact her family. She has complained of ill treatment. Authorities forcibly removed her head scarf and took her away in handcuffs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her son says he was told that she is being held as a \u201cmaterial witness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

AP reports<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that the constitutionality of the material witness law has \u201cnever been meaningfully tested,\u201d according to Ricardo J. Bascuas, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law.\u00a0 Bascuas says the government uses it \u201cwhen they need a reason to arrest somebody but they don\u2019t have one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Family in U.S.<\/h2>\n

Her son, a research fellow at the University of Colorado, told the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the family has \u201cno idea what\u2019s going on.\u201d He says his mother, a widow, had not been contacted by the FBI before she was detained and would \u201cabsolutely\u201d have been willing to cooperate with authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

He told AP\u00a0 that his mother lives in Iran and comes back to the U.S. about once a year to see her family, usually working on a documentary as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

A widow, Hashemi has three children and several grandchildren living in Colorado.\u00a0Hashemi was arrested in St. Louis, after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area, and was next going to Denver to visit a sick brother.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hashemi\u2019s brother, Milton Leroy Franklin of a New Orleans suburb, told AP<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that she had visited to help plan a family reunion. \u201cWe all got together, a small celebration, and prepared for the next time she would come,\u201d Franklin said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hashemi\u2019s son said his mother \u201cis harassed regularly. Every time she travels using air travel, she is pulled to the side. Each time it\u2019s an hour-long, even two-hour-long interview, interrogation. This has been going on for almost a decade now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said his mother told him she was driving to New Orleans despite a snowstorm in Colorado \u201cjust because of the difficulty in air travel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The family is trying to hire an attorney, but her son says they\u2019ve had difficulty because she has not been charged with a crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/YJebraily\/status\/1085441478019727361<\/p>\n

\u00a0Basis of arrest<\/h2>\n

A U.S. official has said<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that Hashemi is being detained to use as a bargaining chip to pressure Iran to release Americans it is holding on espionage charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

CBS reports that some Americans arrested by Iran have similarly \u201cpreviously been used as bargaining chips\u201d in negotiations with the U.S. Iranians have been\u00a0suffering<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0from crippling economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 2012<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some U.S. analysts say that arresting an individual to pressure a foreign government can be problematic.\u00a0Former CIA officer and counter-terrorism expert Philip Giraldi says holding someone \u201cas a hostage under false or dubious legal pretenses is not only ineffective,\u00a0it will inevitably lead to retaliation in kind when Americans travel to foreign countries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to CBS, \u201cFederal law allows judges to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed, however.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is unknown what judge ordered the arrest and on what alleged evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Objections<\/h2>\n

The U.S. arrest of a respected senior journalist, and the abusive treatment she describes, has caused outrage among many Iranians. Iran\u2019s state broadcaster IRIB held a news conference saying: \u201cWe will not spare any legal action\u201d to help her.\u00a0Press TV<\/a><\/strong><\/span> aired file footage of her anchoring news programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acccording to a\u00a0Press TV<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>report, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says\u00a0that because Hashemi\u2019s late husband was Iranian, she is an Iranian citizen. This gives Iran the right to look after her interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zarif said that she is wrongfully imprisoned and that her arrest is a \u201cclear affront to freedom of expression\u201d and \u201cpolitical abuse of an innocent individual.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some Americans have also objected. Laura Petter of\u00a0Human Rights Watch tweeted<\/a><\/strong><\/span>: \u201cMaterial witness statue? Smells of retaliation and harkens back to post 9\/11 days when the US grossly abused this statute. US needs to explain now grounds for holding Hashemi and provide process immediately.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sarah Leah Whitson, another HRW director,\u00a0tweeted<\/a><\/strong><\/span>: \u201cDisturbing allegations about US arrest of #Iran TV journalist Marzieh Hashemi, dubious grounds of detention as \u201cmaterial witness\u201d \u2013 urgently need clarity from US government\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Journalist Jarrett Hill tweeted<\/a><\/strong>: \u201cI wanna know more about why this Black female journalist has been arrested by the US. Marzieh Hashemi \u2013 American born, Muslim television anchor in Iran \u2013 was allegedly arrested in St. Louis and taken to DC; only offered pork to eat, stripped of her hijab and photographed. Why?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: Incarceration violates Constitution<\/h2>\n

In an interview with Press TV<\/strong><\/span>,<\/a>\u00a0law professor\u00a0Ricardo J. Bascuas explains that if Hashem is being incarcerated as a \u201cmaterial witness,\u201d the government\u2019s action would appear to be illegal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bascuas says that \u201cthe Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution plainly makes it unconstitutional to detain any witness because, by definition, there is never \u2018probable cause\u2019 to believe a witness committed a crime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, he said, the Fourth Amendment forbids \u201cunreasonable seizures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bascuas explained: \u201cAn unreasonable seizure is one that is irrational or arbitrary \u2014 i.e., based on hunches or gut feelings rather than facts. By definition, there is never good cause to believe a witness probably committed a crime. So, the Fourth Amendment plainly forbids arresting a witness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bascuas said \u201cwhen federal authorities arrest a material witness despite the Fourth Amendment, they are making up the rules as they go\u2026 Only the government knows whether a material witness is also a target, a suspect, a person of interest, or just someone they can\u2019t rule out as one of those things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said that the word \u201cmaterial\u201d cannot be\u00a0precisely defined, giving the government a free hand to arrest just anyone \u201cespecially when the \u2018proceeding\u2019 is an investigation that only the government knows the contours of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hashemi is being held as a \u201cmaterial witness\u201d\u2013 \u2018a charge authorities use when they need a reason to arrest somebody but don\u2019t have one.\u2019 Alison Weir explains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,51,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Iran","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182361"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182364,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182361\/revisions\/182364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}