The veteran BBC journalist John Simpson and two of his colleagues returned to Britain yesterday nearly two days after being forcibly arrested by secret police in Iran.
Mr Simpson and his colleagues were reporting celebrations in Tehran following President Mohammad Khatami's election victory.
During an angry skirmish, one of the secret policemen dug his finger into Mr Simpson's eye, narrowly missing the pupil with his fingernail, according to BBC News Online.
The team was held for 3-1/2 hours at a nearby police station before being released. Mr Simpson, BBC World Editor, and his colleagues had been covering the elections in Iran since June 2nd.
Meanwhile, Iran's reformists began to lay the groundwork for another four-year battle with entrenched hardliners yesterday, reasserting their control of parliament.
Under pressure to deliver following Mr Khatami's weekend landslide, the Foreign Ministry was also quick to send a signal overseas that the clerical regime was now as ready as ever for detente.
Amid the opening political formalities, a reformist cleric, Mr Mehdi Karubi (64), was reelected parliament speaker, while the President's brother, Mr Mohammad-Reza Khatami, was re-elected deputy speaker.
Mr Mohammad-Reza Khatami, who heads the Islamic Iran Participation Front which dominates the Majlis, said reformists had also started work on hammering out proposals for a new cabinet.
When it comes to foreign policy, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sets the tone, but the Foreign Ministry was quick to assert that Iran was nevertheless on track for greater openess, a key prerequisite for attracting investment.
The overwhelming win of Mr Khatami "will give a second wind to our diplomacy, and will permit the government to pursue its policy of detente with determination and force," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Hamid-Reza Asefi.
He said the key stumbling block to relations with the US was Washington's refusal to back down and lift unilateral sanctions on the Islamic republic.
"The Americans must give some proof of their goodwill, by taking concrete steps, in making concrete gestures," Mr Asefi said. "The condition of Iran is the lifting of all the sanctions."