The state of health of French researcher Roland Marchal, detained in Iran, gives rise to "the most serious concerns", announced Thursday the support committee of the scientist and his companion, the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, also imprisoned, adding that the latter "would be ready to suspend his hunger strike if he was released".
"She has the greatest concerns about her state of health - alarms that we share" because the Revolutionary Guards have refused the consular visit to Roland Marchal since December, writes the Support Committee in a press release.
Fariba Adelkhah on hunger strike since December 24
Any French national detained abroad can benefit from consular protection and receive visits from the French consul, who checks his conditions of detention and his access to a lawyer. Roland Marchal and his partner, both researchers at the Center for International Research (CERI) at Sciences-Po Paris, were arrested in June 2019. Fariba Adelkhah, on hunger strike since December 24, has also refused for a week to " return to his cell and hold a sit-in in the common parts of the prison, "demanding to" meet Roland Marchal to comfort him and ensure his state of health ".
"It also protests against the isolation to which it is subjected," continues their Support Committee. "This visit is denied to him by the Revolutionary Guards on the pretext that they are not legally married," he said. "However they are in fact religiously, since their joint studies in Strasbourg, at the end of the 1970s" and their lawyer "is currently working to legalize this marriage to unblock the situation".
Roland Marchal accused of "collusion to undermine national security"
The Franco-Iranian anthropologist, specialist in Shiism, is placed for his part "under medical supervision, and receives at regular intervals injections of serum which allow him to resist physically", it is specified. "On the psychological level, his determination remains whole," said his Support Committee.
Iranian judicial authorities recently dropped the charge of espionage which targeted her, but she remains prosecuted for "propaganda against the system" of the Islamic Republic and "collusion in order to attack national security". Roland Marchal, a specialist in the Horn of Africa, is also being prosecuted for "collusion with a view to attacking national security". Iran does not recognize dual nationality and therefore has not authorized consular protection for Fariba Adelkhah.
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