“She is free but we don’t know anything about her status,” one of her relatives told AFP on condition of anonymity. Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in Iran in June 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, was released from prison, according to those around her, a few days after Tehran announced a pardon in favor of a “significant number” of convicts.
“France is delighted with the release tonight” of Fariba Adelkhah, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said in a statement. “It is essential that Ms. Fariba Adelkhah be able to recover all of her freedoms, including that of returning to France if she wishes,” she added.
“It is with happiness and relief that we announce the release of our dear colleague Fariba Adelkhah, arbitrarily detained in Iran for more than 3 years. Hostage of the local authorities, she was a scientific prisoner. Thank you to all those who allowed his release”, reacted on Twitter the Parisian higher education establishment Sciences Po.
Grace of Khamenei
A specialist in Shiism and post-revolutionary Iran at the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, Fariba Adelkhah was arrested in 2019 and then sentenced in 2020 to five years in prison for undermining national security, which his relatives have always vehemently denied.
Fariba Adelkhah’s companion, Roland Marchal, also a researcher, had been detained with her before being released in March 2020, after Paris freed the Iranian engineer Jallal Rohollahnejad, whose extradition the United States was seeking for violation of the US sanctions against Iran.
On Sunday, the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced a pardon for a “significant number” of convicts, including those jailed during protests against the Iranian regime since the death on 16 September of Mahsa Amini, detained for violating the dress code.
On Thursday, foreign-based media reported that seven women activists and journalists had been released from Evin prison in Tehran. Dozens of Westerners are detained in Iran, described by their supporters as innocent people used by Tehran as bargaining levers.
7 French detainees
Tehran has argued that all foreigners are detained under Iran’s domestic laws and said it is open to prisoner swaps. In addition to Fariba Adelkhah, Frenchman Benjamin Brière was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage.
Cécile Kohler and her companion Jacques Paris were arrested in May while they were sightseeing in Iran. More recently, the identity of Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, detained in an Iranian prison since October, was made public. Bernard Phelan’s health is deteriorating more and more, his sister Caroline Massé-Phelan told AFP on Tuesday, adding that he is losing his sight.
Bernard Phelan had started a hunger and thirst strike in early January, before suspending it at the request of his family worried about a fatal outcome in the face of inflexible Iranian authorities. Benjamin Brière also started a hunger strike on January 28, his lawyer Me Philippe Valent and his sister Blandine Brière announced on Monday. The names of the other two imprisoned French nationals are not known.