Iran has temporarily released French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, detained in Iran since June 2019. Adelkhah was sentenced on May 16, 2020, to five years in prison for “gathering and conspiring against national security.” According to her lawyer Saeed Dehghan, Adelkhah “was released with an electronic bracelet” and “she is now with her family” in Tehran.
Adelkhah, 61, a well-known anthropologist and researcher on Iran and Shiite Islam, is a director of research at Sciences Po’s Centre for International Studies (CERI) in France. She was detained in June 2019 along with her French colleague Roland Marchal. On March 21, 2020, Iran freed Marchal after a prisoner swap with France. Prior to her arrest, Adelkhah had traveled frequently between the two countries and had spent nearly a year in Iran where her family lives, friend and fellow academic Jean-Francois Bayart told Agence France-Presse.
In June 2020, French President demanded that Adelkhah, 61, be released immediately, saying her detention was harming trust beween the two countries.
Endangered Scholars Worldwide urges the Iranian authorities to unconditionally release Fariba Adelkhah and let her leave the county. We urge the officials of the Iranian government to end the tactic of taking of dual citizen scholars and students’ hostage for political gains; and to respect, guarantee, and implement the provisions and principles of human rights.
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