Saeedi was arrested in the summer of 2021 by border guards in the city of Khoy in the province of West Azerbaijan.

The news of Saeedi's arrest was published on Twitter by Sadaf Samimi, an ISNA correspondent, three weeks after his arrest, on September 9, 2021, and was also confirmed by the Telegram channel "Journalists Club" (Bashgah-e Rooznamenegaran Iran).

According to this report, Saeedi had traveled to the border a few weeks earlier to photograph the conditions of Iranian and Afghan citizens illegally traveling from the city of Khoy to Turkey.

Another Iranian photographer, Reyhaneh Taravati, quoted one of Saeedi’s friends saying that Saeedi was arrested while reporting on the situation of asylum seekers in the border of Khoy, despite having legal permits.

Saeedi was released on September 14, 2021.

He said in a post on his Instagram account [since removed] that he was charged with "propaganda against the regime" and "photographing and documenting sensitive military locations."

He wrote: "I was released after three weeks. The team of interrogators who had come from Iran was very respectful. Eventually I was charged with propaganda against the regime and photographing and documenting sensitive military locations. I was released until the time of the trial.”

In the post, he emphasized that "I did not do anything illegal" and likened his detention to what happened in the Iranian spy thriller TV series "Gando."