Iranian judicial authorities have dropped the spying accusation against Fariba Adelkhah, a lawyer for the Franco-Iranian academic detained in Iran since June announced on Tuesday (January 7th). "The spying charge has been dropped"Said Dehghan said, welcoming the dropping of the death penalty.
Ms. Adelkhah remains charged on two other counts, "Propaganda against the system" political of the Islamic Republic and "Conspiracy against national security", said Dehghan. According to him, the prosecution also dropped the charges for "Breach of public order".
Fariba Adelkhah, an anthropologist specializing in Shi'ism, and Roland Marchal, a specialist in the Horn of Africa, were arrested in June. Paris continues to demand their release.
On hunger strike since December 24
On December 24, after seven months in Tehran, the Franco-Iranian researcher went on hunger strike with one of her fellow inmates, Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert. In a letter that the two women were able to secretly send outside the prison where they are being held, and which was relayed by the Center for Human Rights in Iran, as well as by supporters of Fariba Adelkhah in Paris, they announce that they have stopped eating "On behalf of all the academics and researchers in Iran and the Middle East who are unjustly imprisoned (…) for doing their job " and denounce acts of "Psychological torture".
Accused of having engaged in covert intelligence activities, Mme Adelkhah was arrested at his home the same day as his colleague and friend Roland Marchal, who was arrested on his arrival at Tehran airport. Motivated by charges similar to those against his colleague, his arrest and imprisonment were not made public until October.
The dual nationality, French and Iranian, of Mme Adelkhah, anthropologist, director of research at the Center for International Research (CERI) at Sciences Po, is not recognized by Tehran.
