January 10, 2020
with the Islamic Republic worried about a military attack by the United States, it appears to have blinked, decided it needs no further frictions with Paris, and announced it will not try a dual national academic, Fariba Adel-khab, for espionage, as previously stated.
A researcher with dual French-Iranian nationality, held for months in Evin prison, will not be tried on espionage charges, her lawyer said Januaury 7. But she and another French researcher still face other security-related charges.
Iranian prosecutors dropped the spying charges against Adel-khah after an hours-long hearing, Saeid Dehghan told The Associated Press. Both Adelkhah and Roland Marchal will remain in custody on charges of spreading propaganda, the lawyer said.
Iranian officials disclosed in July that Adelkhah, a prominent anthropologist who often traveled to Iran for research on post-revolutionary Iranian society, had been arrested on espionage charges. Marchal, her friend and fellow researcher, was arrested as he tried to visit her.
In December, France summoned Iranian envoy to Paris, saying it considered the months-long detention of Adelkhah and Marchal “unacceptable” and sought permission for consular officials to visit them.
But Iran does not recognize dual nationality for its citizens.
Also in December, Adel-khah and Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic and co-prisoner from Australia, went on a hunger strike to protest their detention. The strike was revealed by the Center for Human Rights in Iran. They were confirmed by Sciences Po’s research center CERI, where Adelkhah works.
Adelkhah’s lawyer did not say if she remained on hunger strike.
Moore-Gilbert, a University of Melbourne scholar on the Middle East, has been jailed since October 2018.
