Iran confirms that Roxana Saberi held at Evin Jail

With the world media breathing down Iran’s neck for the location of freelance journalist Roxana Saberi has been confirmed to be housed at Evin Jail by Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi.

While Jamshidi did not say what the American journalist was being held for he did hold a news conference. There he told reporters that a revolutionary court, which under Iran’s legal system deals with state security issues as well as other areas of the law, had decided on her detention.

Reuters reports:

“Upon the ruling issued by the revolutionary court she is now in detention at Evin prison,” Jamshidi said. “I don’t know anything about the charges against her.”

Evin prison is where rights group contend that political prisoners are taken. After the 1979 Islamic revolution the prison was the location that those who backed the U.S.-back shah were taken, some of those were executed behind the prison walls.

The U.S. State Department has requested Switzerland to seek information about the American-born Saberi. Switerland represents U.S. interests in Tehran. There has yet to have any response back.

The last time Saberi was heard from was a phone call to Fargo, North Dakota two weeks ago in February with her father. She told Reza Saberi that she had been arrested for buying win. Her father confirmed that her credentials as a journalist had been revoked in Iran but she stayed on working on her master’s degree and writing a book about Iranian society.