Iran re-incarcerates French academic for violating house arrest

Iran, yesterday, sent a French-Iranian academic, Fariba Adelkhah, back to prison for breaking house arrest restrictions.

The deputy head of the Iranian judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi, said that Adelkhah had “unfortunately, knowingly violated the limits of house arrest dozens of times,” adding that she had  “insisted on doing so despite repeated warnings from judicial authorities.”

“So now, like any other prisoner who has violated the same rules, she [Adelkhah] has been returned to prison,” Gharibabadi added.

Adelkhah’s Paris-based support group has said they were in “great shock and indignation for her re-incarceration.”

The French Foreign Ministry warned that the decision would “have negative consequences on the relationship between France and Iran and reduce confidence between our two countries,” describing the move as “entirely arbitrary.”

Sixty-two-year-old Adelkhah was arrested on 5 June 2019 at the Tehran airport. She, an expert on Iran and Shia Islam at France’s Sciences Po University, was sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for what was said to be “conspiring against national security.” In October, she was placed under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.

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