Two detained French academics go on trial in Iran

PARIS: Two French academics jailed in Iran for over half a year on national security charges went on trial Tuesday in a case that has raised tensions between Tehran and Paris.

Fariba Adelkhah, 60, and Roland Marchal, 64, both researchers at Sciences Po University in Paris, were detained in June on charges that rights groups and fellow academics have denounced as outrageous.

Only Adelkhah appeared in the closed-door hearing of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, according to information passed on to their lawyer Said Dehghan.

“Mr Marchal had no problem to appear in court today, but (the authorities) did not bring him. They only brought Ms Adelkhah,” Dehghan told AFP in Tehran.

According to Dehghan, the hearing was postponed to an unspecified date, and the judge refused a defence request that two additional lawyers be allowed to represent them.

Dehghan accused the judge of having “violated the law” over the matter.

Adelkhah, an anthropologist and expert on Shiite Islam, faces charges of “propaganda against the system” and “colluding to commit acts against national security”.Her colleague Marchal, a specialist on East Africa, is accused of the same national security charge, said the lawyer.

Their Paris-based support group and the French foreign ministry have sounded the alarm over the health of the two — Adelkhah went on hunger strike for 49 days and Marchal´s health is said to be deteriorating.

The support group denounced as a “masquerade of justice” the closed-door hearing presided over by Judge Fazlollah Salavati.The group said holding them in jail was particularly dangerous given the intensity of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, which officials there on Tuesday said had claimed 77 lives.