To many, the report in the Damascus daily Al-Watan made it sound as if the Syrian regime was trying to wash its hands of Parvaz, something it would most likely want to do if she were not in good health.
Parvaz, 39, was born in Iran and lived in the UAE until she was 13 when her family moved to British Columbia. She came to the United States for graduate work and then spent almost a decade working for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in Washington state. In 2010, she was hired to work for the English-language side of Al-Jazeera television.
On April 29, she flew to Damascus on assignment to cover the uprisings in Syria. Syria allows few reporters into the country. Parvaz traveled on her Iranian visa since Iranians do not require a visa to enter Syria.
Al-Watan said Parvaz was stopped at the airport when immigration police discovered she was a journalist. Al-Watan said “a well-informed source” told it, “Upon refusal of entry, the journalist asked authorities to let her leave Syria, which she did on May 1.”
She has not called her family, employer or fiancé since before flying to Syria.
A few days after her arrival in Syria, Al-Jazeera said the Syrian government had confirmed that it had detained Parvaz. That was on Wednesday. But Al-Watan said she left Syria two days earlier, on Monday.
Because she holds triple nationality, the governments of Canada, the United States and Iran are all pursuing her case, perhaps a unique circumstance in diplomatic history.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi told a news conference last week that he wanted Syria to investigate what happened to Parvaz.
“I hope that it is not true, but if that is the case, then we demand the government of Syria look into this,” he said.