French researcher Fariba Adelkhah, detained in Iran, was hospitalized

Text by: RFI Follow

Fariba Adelkhah, a Franco-Iranian academic detained in Iran since June, was admitted Sunday to Evin prison hospital where she is incarcerated in Tehran, his lawyer told AFP on Tuesday.

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This hospitalization is the consequence of a serious deterioration in his health, said Saïd Dehqan, seeing in it the result of the hunger strike that this anthropologist led from the end of December to mid-February.

" Unfortunately his kidneys have been damaged " and his state of health is " worrying ", added the lawyer. Ms. Dehqan also expressed concern that Ms. Adelkhah would contract the new coronavirus which officially killed 15 people in Iran.

" Our fear is that the hospitals outside (of the prison) are not safe, " he said, also expressing concern that the husbands of other detainees allowed to visit them in prison may contaminate them.

Ms. Adelkhah is being prosecuted for "propaganda against the system" of the Islamic Republic of Iran and "collusion for the purpose of endangering national security". This last charge was also brought against her companion, the French academic Roland Marchal, detained like her since June by the Islamic Republic. The first hearing of the two academics was scheduled for March 3 before the 15th chamber of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. Ms. Adelkhah is a renowned anthropologist, specialist in Shiism. Mr. Marchal is a specialist in the Horn of Africa.

Paris does not stop demanding the release of these two members of the Center for International Research (CERI) of Sciences Po Paris, but faced with these repeated requests, the Islamic Republic regularly denounces what it presents as an interference in its internal affairs.

Iran does not recognize dual nationality. Arrests of foreigners in Iran, including binationals, often accused of spying, have increased since the United States' unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear deal and the reinstatement of harsh U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, had called at the beginning of February "unbearable" the detentions of Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal.

The support committee of the two researchers believes that the charges against them are fabricated and continues to demand their immediate release.

We are very worried because we have no more news ... We would like her to be seen by an independent doctor ...

Marielle Debos, member of the support committee of the two researchers

According to Jean-François Bayart, researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and member of this committee, Iran detains "ten to fifteen" foreign nationals, often binational, like the Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert and the Iranian-British Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In recent months, Iran has exchanged prisoners with countries holding Iranian nationals who have been sentenced, awaiting trial, or are threatened with extradition to the United States.

The Islamic Republic thus exchanged a few days ago a German detained in Iran for an Iranian detained in Germany and threatened with extradition to the United States.

On February 12, Jalal Rouhollahnejad, an Iranian engineer detained in France and accused by Washington of having attempted to bring technological equipment into Iran in violation of American sanctions against the Islamic Republic, appealed to the Court of Cassation to avoid his extradition to the States -United.

( With AFP)

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