Jailed reporter on hunger strike

TEHRAN, April 25 (UPI) -- U.S. reporter Roxana Saberi has vowed not to eat until she is freed from an Iranian prison in Tehran, her father said Saturday.

Saberi, 31, was sentenced this week to eight years after a one-day, closed trial found her guilty of espionage. Saberi, who is from North Dakota and has free-lanced for National Public Radio, began her hunger strike Tuesday and has been denied visits from her lawyer, said Reza Saberi, her father.

"She says she will continue the strike until she is free from prison," said her father, adding he spoke to his daughter in a 1-minute telephone call and she "did not give us the chance to tell her not to do" a hunger strike.

Saberi, who has been living in Iran since 2003, was detained in January for buying a bottle of wine and then was charged for reporting without proper credentials and espionage, said prosecutor Hassan Haddad.

"Without press credentials and under the name of being a reporter, she was carrying out espionage activities," Haddad told the Iranian Students News Agency.