Hunger strike threat by Roxana Saberi

In the absence of an American embassy in Tehran, the Obama administration has approached the Swiss, who are represented in the Iranian capital, to try to ascertain in what conditions the American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi is being held and to help negotiate her freedom.

Saberi was sentenced to eight years' jail on Saturday after being convicted in a secret trial of spying for the United Sates. No one outside Tehran believes she is anything more than an unfortunate pawn in a diplomatic stand-off as Washington tries to revive negotiations with Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme.

The Americans are adamant that the allegations against the 31-year-old freelance journalist, who is a citizen of both the US and Iran, are "baseless and without foundation".

Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She is a graduate of the Northwestern University journalism school and a one-time Miss North Dakota. She has worked as journalist in Iran for six years in total, including stints for the BBC, Fox News and National Public Radio.

According to her parents, who have travelled to Tehran in an effort to win her release, Saberi, who was arrested back in January, thought she had been detained for buying bootleg wine. Then it emerged that her work permit was not in order. Finally, on the eve of her trial, it was claimed that she had been spying.

The judge who heard the case in camera, Sohrab Heydarifard, issued a statement claiming that Saberi "has been coming and going to certain government circles under the cover of reporter and without a permit. And, through the contacts that she has made with certain employees of these government organisations, she has perpetrated actions to compile and gather information and documents and transferred them to American intelligence services".

Her Iranian-born father, Reza Saberi, says she may have been tricked into a confession, believing she would be released if she co-operated with the authorities. He said his daughter was so depressed by her sentence - the harshest ever given to a dual national on security charges in Iran - that she is threatening to go on hunger strike.

The journalist's Japanese-born mother, Akiko Saberi, is concerned about her daughter's health, describing her as "very, very frail".

Journalists and friends of Saberi in Tehran fear she is being held in Evin jail, where executions are regularly staged. A Canadian-Iranian photo-journalist, Zahra Kazemi, died in Evin in 2003 after reportedly being tortured, beaten and raped, though Iranian authorities insisted she died of natural causes.

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