Jason Rezaian
Global Opinions Writer for the Washington Post
Jason Rezaian is one of the few Western journalists to have been based in Tehran in recent years. From 2009 until his arrest in 2014 he covered stories that tried to explain Iran to a general American audience, first as a freelancer for a variety of outlets and later as The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief.
He reported on two presidential elections, Iran’s nuclear negotiations with global powers, the effects of one of the most punitive sanctions regimes in modern times and environmental issues. In between those momentous topics he told the stories of everyday Iranians which sought to make them more accessible to readers, reporting on Iran’s small community of baseball players, the quest for the best high-end hamburger in Tehran, and a clinic for female drug addicts.
In July of 2014, Rezaian and his wife were detained in their home and he went on to spend 544 in Tehran’s Evin prison, released on the same day that the historic nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was implemented.