Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian held in Iran

Jason Rezaian 

Rezaian has been the Washington Post's Iran journalist since 2012 

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An American news hound for the Washington Post and his wife have been kept in Tehran, an Iranian authority affirmed. 

Jason Rezaian, a 38-year-old double Iran-US subject, and his Iranian wife Yeganeh Salehi, were taken into authority on Tuesday evening, the paper said. 

Two independent photographic artists, additionally US subjects, were being held as well. 

Western news associations, including the BBC, have extraordinary trouble working in Iran, with writers confronting detainment and observation. 

"We are profoundly harried by this news and are concerned for the welfare of Jason, Yeganeh and two others said to have been kept with them," Washington Post outside editorial manager Douglas Jehl said in an announcement. 

"Adversaries" exercises' 

Mr Rezaian, who is from California, has been the Post's Iran reporter since 2012. Ms Salehi functions as a reporter for the National, an English-dialect daily paper situated in the United Arab Emirates. 

Their detainment was affirmed by Iran's Chief Justice Gholamhossein Esmaili, who said they were being addressed yet did not give an explanation behind the captures, the authority Islamic Republic News Agency reported. 

Mr Esmaili said the legal would discharge more subtle elements on the confinement after "specialized examinations", and said Iranian security strengths are "vigilant towards assorted types of foes' exercises". 

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Examination: Leyla Khodabakhshi, BBC Persian administration 

The detainments of Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi came as the Iranian powers venture up weight on autonomous writers and bloggers. Various individuals have been summoned to Tehran's Evin jail as of late on charges of contribution in publicity against the state. Those confined incorporate four female news people - Marzieh Rasouli, Sajedeh Arabsorkhi, Reyhaneh Tabatabaei and Saba Azarpeik. 

The media rights guard dog Reporters Without Borders says there are right now 64 writers and social networking clients detained in Iran. The Iranian powers have long held the media under strict control, however captures and intimidation escalated after the 2009 majority rule government challenges. 

At the point when President Rouhani took office in August 2013 various columnists were discharged from jail, and Ministry of Intelligence delegates in his new bureau appeared to have taken a more loose approach towards the media. Anyway in the meantime columnists have gone under replenished weight from the legal and the Revolutionary Guards, who work outside the legislature's locale. 

President Rouhani has so far said nothing in regards to the most recent wave of captures. 

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Roxana Saberi in Doha (2010) 

Iranian-American independent news person Roxana Saberi was held for 100 days in 2009 

A news person in Tehran for a Western news outlet who has been a companion of Mr Rezaian for five years said the couple had communicated no worry over their security or reasons for alarm they would be confined. 

"They were simply buckling down and just discussed how they appreciated reporting from here," the correspondent told the BBC. 

"This is additionally an astonishment, in light of the fact that the air when all is said in done had seemed to wind up more open for outside news outlets, in any event, with more remote writers getting visas and accreditation." 

Dangers against BBC 

The correspondent said that the handful of double national columnists working in Iran are presently very apprehensive after Mr Rezaian's detainment. 

Compelling voices in Iran every now and again confine or bother columnists working for Western news associations, and westerners with double citizenship are regular targets. 

Iran-based relatives of BBC columnists have been addressed by sagacity administrations, and powers have endeavored to threaten London-based BBC Persian staff by setting up false Facebook pages on which BBC staff parts imply to confess to sexual offense or to spying for the UK. 

A year ago, Iran cautioned the groups of 15 BBC Persian Service writers that their relatives must stop working for the BBC in London, and in a few cases the lives of the staff were undermined. 

In 2009, Iranian-American columnist Roxana Saberi was held for five months in the wake of being captured for buying a container of wine. She had acted as a consultant for the BBC and for US radio system National Public Radio. That year, a journalist for AFP was held for a few days.