Iran: France’s statement on jailed Iranian national ‘unfounded’, unworthy of consideration

Iran’s top human rights official has categorically rejected France’s “hasty and unfounded” statements on an Iranian national sent to prison again after violating the terms of her house arrest, saying Tehran condemns interference of any country in its judicial affairs.

Kazem Gharibabadi, the Judiciary chief’s deputy for international affairs and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks in reaction to a Wednesday statement by France's Foreign Ministry, which condemned a decision to reincarcerate Iranian national Fariba Adelkhah, who also holds the French nationality, and called for her immediate release.

Iran has frequently emphasized that it does not recognize dual citizenship and considers all Iranians with that status as its own nationals.

“Ms. Adelkhah is a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and we strongly condemn the interference of other countries in the judicial process” involving an Iranian national, Gharibabadi said on Sunday.

As an Iranian national, a competent court has heard Adelkhah’s charges through an independent judicial process, he added.

Gharibabadi said it was unfortunate that the prisoner “has knowingly violated the rules of her house arrest dozens of times and despite repeated warnings from judicial authorities, she has insisted on doing so.”

“All across the world, when a judge, for any reason, sentences a prisoner to house arrest while wearing an electronic tag, it means that  there are restrictions on the range of the prisoner’s movement,” the Iranian official said, adding that all prisoners know that in case of violating the rules, they would be returned to prison.

“So now, like any other prisoner who has violated the same rules and repeatedly misused the situation, she has been returned to prison.”

He emphasized that it is “very unfortunate” that the French authorities, regardless of the goodwill shown by Iran's judicial system toward a country's citizen, are making “baseless and unfounded” remarks through hasty statements, which are “definitely unacceptable and not worthy of consideration” by Iran.

Adelkhah, a 62-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po's Center for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, was arrested in Iran in June 2019 on espionage charges. She was sentenced in May 2020 to five years' imprisonment. In October of that year, she was placed under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.

Iran censures France’s ‘interventionist’ attitude on jailed academic

Iran has imprisoned a French-Iranian citizen on an espionage charge.

In interventionist remarks, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called the decision "entirely arbitrary," adding that "the whole of France" was "mobilized for her release."

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