A French national has been detained in Iran since May 2020, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday February 24.
"The services of the ministry, in Tehran as in Paris, are closely monitoring the situation of our compatriot", declared the Quai d'Orsay, while a researcher with dual French and Iranian nationality, Fariba Adelkhah, is already retained in Iran since June 2019.
"He enjoys consular protection provided for by the Vienna Convention of April 24, 1963," added the ministry.
This procedure makes it possible to verify the conditions of detention, the state of health and access to a lawyer for any French national detained abroad.
"As such, and despite the health situation, consular visits were made to him and regular contacts are maintained with him by our embassy in Tehran and with his family by our services in Paris", continued the ministry, without further ado. details of the circumstances of his arrest and detention.
Detention "without explanation"
According to Le Point, this French national, a 35-year-old tourist, was apprehended by Iranian security forces in a desert area on the border between Iran and Turkmenistan.
He was in Iran to tour the country by van and has since been detained in Mashhad's Vakilabad prison in the northeast of the country, the weekly said.
The French daily Le Figaro had already reported Thursday, without further details, of the arrest of a Frenchman "in the desert while handling a drone".
"This young tourist, illegally detained for about nine months, faces contradictory and false accusations," said lawyer Saïd Dehghan, who also defended Fariba Adelkhah, on Twitter.
"The authorities have not provided the slightest file or the slightest explanation for his detention," adds a relative quoted by Le Point.
"He is in good health and has been able to talk to his family on the phone three times."
Increase in arrests of foreigners in Iran since 2018
A specialist in Shiism and post-revolutionary Iran at Sciences Po Paris, Fariba Adelkhah, for his part, was arrested on June 5, 2019 in Tehran.
She was sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for "collusion with a view to endangering national security" and "propaganda against the political system" of the Islamic Republic, charges that she has always rejected.
The researcher left Evin prison on October 3 and has since been under house arrest in Tehran, under the control of an electronic bracelet, with a ban on moving beyond a perimeter of 300 meters around her home, according to its support committee.
Arrests of foreigners in Iran, in particular binationals, often accused of espionage, have increased since the United States unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from the international Iran nuclear agreement and the reinstatement of harsh American sanctions against Tehran.
In recent months, Iran has conducted several prisoner exchanges with countries holding Iranian nationals convicted, awaiting trial, or threatened with extradition to the United States.
With AFP
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