They tell her that they too feel trapped in suffocating marriages – some say her stories have inspired them to walk out of abusive relationships.

"There was heavy smoke and we nearly suffocated. Glass from destroyed windows fell over us. We took cover under the tables and then fled," she added.

It was all pretty simple, really, and now, for the rest of baseball, it’s downright suffocating.

"Cecilia was in Iran, with a regular visa, to report on a country she knows and loves, a country in which information is suffocated by repression," the newspaper said in a statement on its website.

Amnesty International said Iranian authorities were "seeking to entrench the already suffocating system of repression".