Freedom for Fariba, Freedom for Research
Editorial by Alain Dieckhoff, Director of CERI
At the beginning of September, CERI returned to work after the summer break and we have progressively resumed our normal activities. Yet this new academic year has started with a bitter taste because our colleague Fariba Adelkhah, Sciences Po Research Director, is absent: she was arrested in Iran in June 2019 and is still in prison.
As has been the case for many years, Fariba conducted her research on contemporary Iran in an open and transparent way. After a detour of several years doing research on Afghanistan, she had returned to Iran where she had for so long worked to help better understand the complexity of this “post–Islamic revolution” society. Faithful to the proven anthropological method, Fariba had begun long-term fieldwork, guided by one sole ambition: the thirst for a better knowledge of this society.
Her activities have always been—should we even need to specify it?—strictly academic and Fariba Adelkhah had no public political commitment. We can therefore only make unverifiable suppositions about why some within the Islamic Republic have decided to target a researcher who has always done her research in a transparent way.
The inacceptable situation in which Fariba finds herself is unfortunately not unique. Other researchers have been arrested during the last few years, including very recently British-Iranian anthropologist Kameel Ahmady. Even if academics are not the only victims of such arbitrariness, it remains that they are seen as valuable prey: they are invariably accused of conducting, under the cover of research, activities verging on spying. And it is not necessary to be working on the very contemporary to end up behind bars. American PhD student Xiyue Wang, from the Department of History of Princeton (one of Sciences Po’s close partners), was conducting research on the Qajar dynasty, which dominated Persia between the end of the eighteenth century and the early twentieth century. In 2017, Xiyue Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Such facts confirm that in Iran, as in other non-democratic countries unfortunately, researchers can easily be considered with suspicion and can find themselves in an infernal dynamic resembling Kafka’s The Trial. As researchers, we face a real difficulty: we need to pursue our work, elucidating the social, even on difficult terrain, but we cannot ignore that even if we act carefully, we can unjustly find ourselves in a situation of being accused. Later on, with serenity and responsibility, we need to conduct a profound reflection on what it means to be a researcher in a turbulent world.
Meanwhile, in the name of CERI and together with the entire Sciences Po community, I want to strongly reaffirm our unfailing support for Fariba as well as for all scientists imprisoned in Iran, and I reiterate my fierce wish to see her back among us very soon.
For more information about the situation and a list of Fariba Adelkhah's publications, visit this page
