Fariba Adelkhah has been imprisoned again in Evin prison in Iran, its support committee reported on Wednesday (January 12), while the French government called for the immediate release of the Franco-Iranian anthropologist.

Diplomatic repercussions 

"We learn with amazement and indignation the reincarceration in Evin prison of Fariba Adelkhah", announced its support committee in Paris in a statement, denouncing "cynical" actions of the Iranian power which would use the case of the researcher "according to exterior or interior purposes which remain opaque ".

Coming in the midst of negotiations on Iranian nuclear power, this announcement pushes France, which already finds them too slow, to warn against "the negative consequences" of this return to prison.

"The decision to return to prison, which we condemn, can only have negative consequences on the relationship between France and Iran and reduce confidence between our two countries," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, demanding the "immediate release" of the researcher.

Arrested in June 2019 and sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for attacks on national security, which her supporters have always denied, she was released on a temporary basis in October 2020, remaining in Tehran under the control of a bracelet electronic

This turnaround comes as Iran and several countries (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China, plus the United States indirectly) relaunched talks in November to save the 2015 Vienna Accord, supposedly prevent Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons, a particularly hot issue and scrutinized throughout the region.

The head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tuesday that the negotiations were "too slow", seeming to reduce the optimism he had expressed a few days earlier.

Nuclear negotiations "too slow"

"Discussions are ongoing but from our point of view they are slow, too slow," he said.

This situation "compromises the possibility of finding in a realistic timetable a solution respectful of the interests of each one", he underlined.

The talks aim to bring back into the pact Washington, which left it in 2018, and to bring Tehran back to respecting its commitments, broken in reaction to the reinstatement of American sanctions.

As the Covid pandemic continues in full swing, the Iranian government is deliberately endangering the health and even the life of Fariba Adelkhah - the death in custody of poet and director Baktash Abtin last Saturday having demonstrated his incapacity or his unwillingness to guarantee the safety of its detainees, "denounced Fariba Adelkhah's support committee.

Iranian poet, filmmaker and dissident Baktash Abtin died in prison after contracting Covid-19 there, several human rights organizations revealed last Saturday, accusing Tehran of being responsible.

Imprison bi-nationals to haggle?

Iran has several dual nationals and another French citizen, Benjamin Brière.

They are sometimes accused of espionage.

In recent years, the Islamic Republic has carried out several exchanges of detainees with foreign countries.

Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has once considered Fariba Adelkhah to be "hostage" to Tehran for the purpose of bargaining.

This announcement of Fariba Adelkhah's return to prison comes on the same day as that of the BritishCouncil, an organization promoting British culture abroad, on the return to the United Kingdom of one of its employees, Aras Amiri, after her death. acquittal in Iran where she was convicted in 2019 for espionage.

With AFP

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