Newsweek Demands Release of Canadian Journalist Held in Iran

Hajari said Bahari's mother told Newsweek the people who took her son "didn't clearly identify themselves and they didn't say when he would be back."

A laptop and several videotapes were also seized from the apartment by authorities, Hajari said.

At least 24 journalists and bloggers are also known to have been arrested in Iran since more than a week ago when Iranians began protesting the official results of the presidential election.

[q url="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/06/22/iran-tehran-journalist-detain-bahari-newsweek489.html?ref=rss"]Bahari, who is originally from Tehran, but moved to Canada in 1988 and completed a degree at Concordia University in Montreal and keeps a home in Toronto, has been working in Iran for Newsweek for more than a decade, the publication said in a statement posted on its website.

On Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement calling on the Iranian government to "release all political prisoners and journalists — including Canadians — who have been unjustly detained, to allow Iranian and foreign media to report freely on these historic events, and to conduct a full and transparent investigation into allegations of fraud in the presidential election."