Hellwig and the photographer Jens Koch. The two reporters had been arrested while interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death for adultery. A condition of their release was that Westerwelle meet with Ahmadinejad, causing Iranian exile groups in Europe to condemn the visit and to argue that Germany was bowing to the Tehran government at a time when security forces were cracking down on pro-democracy demonstrators. When Iran briefly refused to allow a plane carrying German Chancellor Angela Merkel to India to cross its air space in May 2013, Westerwelle summoned Iran's ambassador to Germany, Alireza Sheikhattar, complaining about "a disrespect for Germany that we will not accept." He later temporarily recalled Germany's ambassador to Iran for consultation after an attack on the British Embassy in Tehran in November 2013. In November 2010, Westerwelle became the first German minister to visit Gaza since the territory was sealed off by the Israeli army at the end of 2007. In April 2011, Westerwelle summoned China's ambassador to Germany, Wu Hongbo, for a meeting about detained Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei, calling for his release and denouncing China's growing use of extrajudicial detentions against dissidents. In September 2012, Westerwelle joined his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh in visiting the Zaatari refugee camp to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011. After the offices of both the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in St Petersburg and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Moscow were investigated by prosecutors and tax inspectors in March 2013, Westerwelle summoned the envoy at the Russian embassy in Berlin to relay his "concern over the concerted action". On 4 December 2013, Westerwelle walked with opposition leaders through an encampment on Kiev's Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the focus of protests over the Yanukovych government's U-turn away from the European Union and toward Russia; Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev subsequently called any participation by foreign officials in the political events unfolding in Ukraine "interference in internal affairs." Arab Spring When the insurgency against Libya's dictator Muammar Gaddafi broke out in early 2011, Westerwelle promptly stated his support for the repressed opposition. Earlier, he had initially been cautious before making any pronouncements about Tunisia and Egypt, but in the case of Libya, he quickly called out Gaddafi as a dictator, and argued in favor of EU-level sanctions against the regime in Tripoli.