Congressman Jared Huffman on Saturday called the release of former Marin resident and current Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and other Americans “a great diplomatic achievement for the United States.”
Huffman, D-San Rafael, who had interceded in the 39-year-old Rezaian’s case, said that his brother, Ali Rezaian, of Mill Valley, was on his way to Europe to reunite with Jason. This past Tuesday, Ali, 45, was Huffman’s guest at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
Robbie Stauder, who began a lifelong friendship with Jason Rezaian in the first grade at Marin Country Day School, said Saturday he would remain concerned until assured he was safe. “There have been so many false starts, so many hopes,” he said from New York, where he now lives.
Officials at Marin Academy, where Rezaian had attended school, were thrilled with the news, said Travis Brownley, head of school.
Rezaian had been an involved alumnus, speaking at the school’s conference on democracy and visiting the campus when he could, she said.
“We are just very proud of him as an alum who has really lived the mission of our school,” Brownley said.
While Jason Rezaian grew up in the Bay Area, his father’s home country, Iran, always had a big piece of his heart.
Rezaian drove around with a California license plate holder that read, “Powered by ghormeh sabzi,” an Iranian dish, according to his mother, Mary Breme Rezaian.
On his eighth birthday, Rezaian’s family got him a passport, hoping he would someday visit Iran. Their wish came true, and then some: He learned Farsi and eventually moved to Iran, where he freelanced and penned a blog called Inside Iran.
In 2012, Rezaian became a Tehran correspondent for the Post, writing stories that he hoped would give readers a more nuanced view of a country that fascinated him, the newspaper has said.
Rezaian and his Iranian wife, Yeganeh Salehi, a journalist for the United Arab Emirates newspaper the National, were arrested at their home in July 2014. Salehi was released on bail about two months later, while Rezaian languished in the country’s notorious Evin Prison in Tehran for 18 months, held on espionage and other charges.
Rezaian and the Post have long denied the allegations of spying. Iran’s Fars News Agency, citing an Iranian Revolutionary Guard report on Saturday, said he had been held because of “attempts to help the U.S. Senate to advance its regime-change plots in Iran.”
Rezaian’s late father, Taghi Rezaian, came to the U.S. from Iran as a foreign exchange student in 1959. He owned Persian rug stores in Mill Valley and Petaluma, where he was known as a gregarious businessman.
Jason Rezaian has been described by family and friends as an avid Oakland A’s fan. One of his last stories for the Post, published five days before his arrest, was about Iranian baseball.
The other Americans being released are:
Matthew Trevithick, a student, was released after 40 days of detention at Evin Prison in Tehran, according to a statement from his parents. He was not part of the prisoner swap.
He had traveled to Iran in September for a four-month, intensive language program at the Dehkhoda Institute, a language center affiliated with Tehran University.
Staff writer Josh Richman, the Tribune News Service and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
