Tehran - An Iranian court in Tehran began a closed-door session on Sunday to hear the appeal of a jailed Iranian-American journalist's spying conviction. State news agency IRNA quoted the country's judiciary spokesman Ali-Reza Jamshidi as saying the hearing would not be public and attended only by representatives of the secret service, prosecutors' office and the bar association.
The 32-year-old Roxana Saberi, who worked for US National Public Radio, was sentenced to eight years in prison last month on charges of spying for the US government.
In protest at the verdict, Saberi launched a two-week hunger strike on April 21, drinking only water.
The US and some other Western countries protested on Saberi's conviction, but Tehran has rejected any foreign interference in the case. It said Saberi is Iranian and would be treated the same as any other citizen.
Saberi is a US citizen, her mother is Japanese and her father is Iranian.
In Iran, dual nationality is not acknowledged but tolerated. In official cases, however, only the nationality of the subject's father is taken into account.
