Tehran: Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah returned to prison


French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, detained since 2019 in Iran, has been reincarcerated in Tehran for violating the rules of her house arrest, Iranian justice announced on Sunday.

Fariba Adelkhah, 62, has been under house arrest since October 2020 in Tehran and had to wear an electronic bracelet, with limited movement within a radius of 300 meters.

A specialist in Shiism and post-revolutionary Iran at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, she was arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for undermining national security, which her relatives have always fiercely disputed.

“Unfortunately, Ms. Adelkhah deliberately violated the limits set on her house arrest dozens of times, and as a result, she was sent back to prison,” deputy head of the judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi, was quoted by Mizan as saying. Iranian Justice News Agency. He regretted that the researcher ignored “repeated warnings from the judicial authorities”.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called the Iranian authorities’ decision “totally arbitrary”, saying that “all of France” was “mobilized for (the) release” of the researcher. The day before, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had warned that his reincarceration “could only have negative consequences” on bilateral relations and “reduce confidence” between the two countries.

Gharibabadi said Sunday that these statements were “unfounded” and denounced the interference of foreign countries in the Iranian judicial system. Iran does not recognize dual nationality and treats those arrested as Iranian citizens.

Pandemic concerns

Several dual nationals and another French citizen, Benjamin Brière, are detained in Iran. In recent years, the Islamic Republic has carried out several exchanges of detainees with foreign countries.

Adelkhah and her companion, the Africanist Roland Marchal, who came to join her for a private visit, were arrested on June 5, 2019 at Tehran airport by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic. Marchal was released on March 20, 2020 as part of an exchange of detainees between Tehran and Paris.

Thursday in Paris, a hundred people had gathered to show their indignation and their support for Fariba Adelkhah “scientific prisoner” in Iran. Her relatives also expressed their concerns about the physical health of the researcher.

François Pacquemant, in charge of History and Strategic Thinking at the French Development Agency (AFD) and member of the Fariba support committee, was particularly concerned about her health “weakened by the hunger strike she went on in December 2019” and “uncertainties caused by the health situation”.

Especially since his imprisonment comes only a few days after the death of the poet and Iranian dissident Baktash Abtin in prison after having contracted the Covid-19 there, according to the revelations of several human rights organizations.





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