Iran releases detained journalist

Detained journalist Dorothy Parvaz has been released by Iranian authorities and arrived in Qatar early today, her fiance said.

Todd Barker said Parvaz was safe and healthy, “just a little tired.”

“The family and me are elated, and we’re really grateful to the Iranian authorities who treated her very respectfully,” Barker said. “It’s over.”

He said Parvaz should arrive in Vancouver, B.C., today or Thursday.

Barker said Parvaz told him that she hadn’t called him sooner because she was being held in solitary confinement in Evin prison in Tehran. He said Parvaz said she was questioned by Iranian authorities and wasn’t allowed to contact her family.

Parvaz, 39, a former reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Times, now works for the Qatar-based news agency Al-Jazeera. She has Canadian, Iranian and U.S. citizenship.

She used her Iranian passport to enter Syria on April 29 and was detained at the Damascus airport. After several days of silence, Syrian Embassy officials said last week that Parvaz had been sent to Iran after she had attempted to enter Syria on an expired Iranian passport. She had given “tourism” as her reason for travel, embassy officials said, although the purpose of her trip was to cover the unrest in Syria for Al-Jazeera.