The Washington Post announced Wednesday that journalist Jason Rezaian is rejoining the newspaper to cover foreign affairs after the Iranian government imprisoned him for 18 months.
The Post's announcement came two years to the day after Rezaian was released from Iran's notorious Evin prison.
Rezaian joined the Post in 2012 as a correspondent in Iran and later served as the paper's bureau chief in Tehran. But while reporting in Iran, the Iranian government arrested him in July 2014. He was detained and imprisoned for 18 months.
A closed-door Iranian court charged Rezaian, who had not been told what charges he was initially imprisoned on, with espionage and other crimes, including "collaborating with hostile governments" and "propaganda against the establishment."
Rezaian was released on Jan. 17, 2016 along with three other Americans as part of a prisoner release deal.
Since then, Rezaian has served as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and a Terker fellow at George Washington University's School of Media & Public Affairs. He is also working on a book about his experience, to be published by Bourdain Books, an imprint of Ecco Press.
Rezaian lost about 50 pounds from stress and malnourishment while in prison, where he was forced to sleep on a cold, roach-infested floor and was subjected to sleep deprivation.
The journalist, who now lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Yeganeh, will begin his work as a staff writer for the Post's WorldViews blog on Monday.