Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian said Thursday that throughout his ordeal in an Iranian prison, his jailers insisted “the United States government would not lift a finger for my release.”
Rezaian spoke emotionally during the official opening of the newspaper’s new headquarters in front of the staff, owner Jeff Bezos and Secretary of State John Kerry.
“For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me the Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight and that the United States government would not lift a finger for my release,” he said. “Today, I’m here in this room with the very people who helped prove the Iranians wrong in so many ways.”
Rezaian also expressed gratitude to Kerry.
“No other country would do so much for an ordinary citizen,” Rezaian said.
Post publisher Fred Ryan welcomed attendees to the event by saying there was no sense in “burying the lede.”
“We have been waiting a long time to welcome you back to the Washington Post,” Ryan told Rezaian.
Rezaian received a standing ovation from those in attendance. As he stood at the podium, an emotional Rezaian acknowledged that he had “not been around a crowd for a long time.”
He spoke graciously of the people who supported him during his more than 500 days in captivity. He thanked Bezos as well as Ryan and Post executive editor Marty Baron.
Bezos, Rezaian said, “not only gave me a ride home to freedom but spent the last year and a half supporting the Post’s efforts on my behalf.”
Taking the stage immediately after Rezaian, Kerry said that Rezaian’s release marked “one of the days I enjoyed most as secretary of state.”
“Jason, we are all so delighted that you are back now,” Kerry said.
Bezos, the billionaire founder and CEO of Amazon, closed out the event with remarks about the prestige and future of the newspaper he bought in 2013. But like every other speaker, he began with a salute to Rezaian.
“First of all, we couldn’t have a better guest of honor for our grand opening than Jason,” Bezos said, “because the fact that you’re our guest of honor means you’re here.”