MOSCOW: A Russian journalist has been arrested in the Iranian capital and kept in custody since earlier this week, the Russian embassy to Tehran said on Friday.
The embassy’s press attaché told the Tass news agency that Yulia Yuzik flew into Tehran last Sunday and that Iranian officials seized her passport at the airport for unknown reasons. She was arrested in her hotel room on Wednesday.
The attaché could not immediately say why the journalist was under arrest.
The Russian foreign ministry has summoned the Iranian ambassador to Moscow to explain Yuzik’s arrest, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Yuzik’s former husband Boris Voitsekhovsky said on Facebook on Friday that she called him from detention saying that she faces charges of espionage for Israel.
Yuzik, who worked for several prominent Russian publications and has reported from Iran, posted pictures from her trip on Instagram earlier this week, saying that she loved being there.
