Cecilia Sala, 29, a journalist who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained in Iran on 19 December, the Italian foreign ministry said, but her arrest was only made public on Friday.

She was in the country on a regular journalist visa and had published several reports on the shifting landscape in Iran after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

“Following orders from foreign minister Antonio Tajani, the embassy and consulate in Tehran are monitoring the case with utmost attention from the outset,” Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “Working in coordination with the council presidency, we are engaged with Iranian authorities to clarify Sala’s legal situation and verify the conditions of her detention.”