Iran Upholds French-Iranian Academic's 5-year Jail Sentence

Iran’s appeals court upheld on Tuesday a five-year prison sentence for French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah.

Last May, Iran sentenced The 61-year-old Adelkhah to five years in prison on national security charges, including conspiring against national security.

Adelkhah and her French colleague and partner Roland Marchal, who were visiting her in Tehran, were arrested together in June of last year.

Marchal was released in an apparent prisoner swap in March, while Adelkhah remained in custody ever since her arrest.

The case has been a complication between the Tehran-Paris relations for months.

In May, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned Adelkhah's sentence, describing the verdict as a "political" ruling, and demanded her immediate release.

Adelkhah's trial began on March 3, with the final hearing was held at branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court on April 19.

She has maintained her innocence and went on a 49-day hunger strike to protest her conditions.

"Adelkhah was greatly weakened by a 49-day hunger strike that she held between late December and February." her lawyer Said Dehghan said in a press statement.

It is worth mentioning that Adelkhah is a research director at Sciences Po university in Paris, and an anthropologist specialising in Shia Islam. She has a dual French-Iranian citizen, a status Iran does not recognise.

She was born in Iran in 1959 and were residing in France since 1977.