BERLIN: Relatives of two German journalists detained in Iran since October in connection with a highly publicized stoning case have traveled to Tehran hoping to see them, the foreign ministry in Berlin said Sunday.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told newspaper Bild am Sonntag he expects the meeting with the relatives will take place "during the Christmas holidays" — which is considered in Germany to end Sunday.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry said midday Sunday that the reporter’s sister and the photographer’s mother were accompanied by Germany’s ambassador to Iran, but he had no information when or if the meeting would take place.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said earlier this month that the judiciary was considering a request that would allow the two Germans to temporarily reunite with their family for Christmas. But authorities in Tehran never officially confirmed that the relatives would be allowed to meet them.
"May our detained colleagues today embrace their relatives?" Bild am Sonntag tabloid, for whom the pair were working in Iran, asked on its front page Sunday.
The two journalists, who had entered the country on tourist visas, were arrested early October in the western city of Tabriz while interviewing the son and lawyer of 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who had been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
Iranian officials have said the two Germans admitted to violating Iranian laws, which forbid those entering the country on tourist visas to work as journalists.
Bild am Sonntag said the meeting with the relatives was initially planned for Saturday, but was canceled on short notice, apparently because the pair had not been transferred from Tabriz to Tehran.
But the paper remained hopeful as foreign minister Westerwelle threw his weight behind the cause. "I want to express my expectation that the meeting with the relatives will still take place during the Christmas holidays," Bild am Sonntag quoted him as saying.
Neither the newspaper nor the governments of the two countries have identified the journalists.
Bild am Sonntag long stayed silent on the case, hoping that "quiet diplomacy" thanks to robust German-Iranian relations would get the two freed quickly, but changed track mid-November after the journalists were shown on Iranian state television.
The sentence against Ashtiani, meanwhile, has been put on hold and is now being reviewed by Iran’s Supreme Court.
The outcry over her case came as one of the latest thorns in the side of Iran’s relationship with the international community, as the US, the European Union and international human rights groups have urged Iran to stay the execution.
