Iran Re-imprisons Hostage After Five-Day Furlough

(New York, N.Y.) — Following a five-day furlough from Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin Prison, the Iranian regime re-imprisoned French-Iranian anthropologist Fariba Adelkhah despite the hopes of her attorney and supporters that her release would be extended. The regime has held Adelkhah hostage for three years, sentencing her to five years in prison in May 2020 on trumped-up charges of “collusion to endanger national security” and “propaganda against the political system of the Islamic Republic.”

To read UANI’s profile of Fariba Adelkhah, please click here. 

Because the Iranian regime does not recognize dual nationality and therefore does not view Adelkhah as a French citizen, it has denied her French consular access and largely ignored the French government’s efforts to win her release. Adelkhah is one of over a dozen other Westerners—including several Americans—held hostage by the regime. Her plight is a reminder that the U.S. and its European allies should not reenter or make any nuclear agreement with Iran until the regime frees all hostages renounces hostage taking.  

Adelkhah’s detention is part of Tehran’s broader strategy of holding Westerners hostage as bargaining chips to extract concessions from other countries and send a message to Iranians at home and abroad to refrain from dissent. Evidence shows the regime has repeatedly violated Adelkhah’s human rights during her detention, with fellow detainees stating they saw Adelkhah entering the prison being beaten and dragged by her hair.

In late September 2020, France, Germany, and the U.K., in a coordinated action, each summoned the Iranian ambassadors to those respective countries to protest the Iranian regime’s imprisonment of their citizens, as well as other human rights abuses. However, there were no reports that any of the three governments threatened Iran with consequences if it continued taking and holding their nationals hostage. Adelkhah’s prison sentence ends in June 2024.  

To read UANI’s resource Hostages in Iran, please click here.

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