Fariba Adelkhah: Iran sentences French-Iranian academic to six years in prison on national security charges, lawyer says

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Iran has sentenced the French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges, according to her Iranian lawyer.

The sentencing drew swift protests from France’s government calling for her immediate release, with the French foreign ministry arguing that Ms Adelkhah’s conviction was politically motivated.

“The branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced her to five years’ jail for gathering and conspiring against Iran’s national security. She was also given a one-year jail term for propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” Saeid Dehghan, Ms Adelkhah’s lawyer, said.

Mr Dehghan said he would appeal against the sentence.

“This sentencing is not based on any serious element or fact and is thus a political decision,” the French ministry said in a statement.

The ministry added: “We are urging Iranian authorities to immediately release Mrs Adelkhah.”

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality, has previously rejected calls by France to release the 61-year-old anthropologist, who has been detained since June 2019, as the Tehran government says the demands are an interference in Iranian internal affairs.

Ms Adelkhah’s work at Sciences Po in Paris focused on social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran.

In 2019, it was reported that she had been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and detained in Evin Prison in Tehran.

Sciences Po said she began a hunger strike, alongside Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, on 24 December, ending on 12 February, to protest her innocence.

Ms Adelkhah ended her hunger strike after concerns were raised about her health and she was admitted to the prison’s hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage 11 days later, Sciences Po said.

Mr Dehghan said earlier this year that spying charges against Ms Adelkhah had been dropped but she remained in jail on other security-related charges.

In March, Iran released Ms Adelkhah’s partner, French academic Roland Marchal, who had been detained with her, after France came to an agreement to free Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad, who had been detained over alleged violations of US sanctions against Tehran.

Dozens of dual nationals, such as British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, have been arrested in Iran in recent years, often on espionage charges.

Additional reporting by Reuters