Fariba Adelkhah, hostage of Iran, returns to France

The negotiations obviously always take place behind the scenes… but the return of Fariba Adelkhah at least shows that Paris and Tehran have never stopped talking to each other while relations between the two capitals are very tense due to repression by the regime of protest movements which are shaking the country. The Quai d’Orsay expresses its relief and assures that it “has spared no effort” to facilitate his release. But he asked the researcher and the members of her support committee at Sciences Po where she taught not to speak out for the moment. Fariba Adelkhah contented herself last evening with a brief statement of thanks.
Since February she was no longer in prison, but held in Iran after four trying years
Arrested on June 5, 2019 in Tehran with her colleague and companion Roland Marshal, she was sentenced to five years in prison for endangering national security. Iran does not recognize dual nationality and considers it 100% Iranian. she was incarcerated in Evin prison then placed under an electronic bracelet then reincarcerated… hunger strike… 49 days… In February, thanks to a collective pardon, she was released but prohibited from leaving the prison. country.
Those close to him have always proclaimed his innocence. Fariba is not a spy, her only crime is to take a critical look at Iranian society, to be an independent and intrepid researcher who was never afraid to go into the field, they say. Fariba Adelkhah is a specialist in social and political anthropology; her work on Iran has been translated into several languages ​​and has earned her a certain notoriety in academia. For her support committee, she is a scientific prisoner, a hostage to arbitrariness.
We will undoubtedly, later, have details on his release… What we know is that Iran, which currently detains around ten Western nationals, generally uses them as a bargaining chip.
This is called “hostage diplomacy”. A month ago, 5 Americans were released. In exchange, five Iranians prosecuted or convicted in the United States benefited from clemency measures and six billion dollars of Iranian money frozen in South Korea due to sanctions were released. The negotiations lasted several years. In May a Belgian humanitarian was released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat sentenced in Belgium to 20 years in prison.Remember that there are still 4 French people detained in Iran: two trade unionist teachers, Cécile Kholer and her partner Jacques Paris, a 39-year-old consultant Louis Arnaud and a French national whose identity the French authorities refuse to give. For them, Paris regularly evokes the term “state hostages”.