This archive report was first published on 29 December 2019.
Iran has denied French accusations of interference in the detention of a French academic, Fariba Adelkhah, and her colleague Roland Marchal, who were arrested in Iran on espionage charges. The French government summoned Iran's ambassador to protest their imprisonment, calling it "intolerable".
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, responded by saying that the French foreign ministry's statement regarding an Iranian national was an act of interference with no legal basis.
Adelkhah, a specialist in Shiite Islam and research director at Sciences Po University in Paris, was arrested in July for suspected espionage. Her colleague Marchal was arrested while visiting her, according to his lawyer.
Adelkhah and another detained academic, Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, started an indefinite hunger strike just before Christmas, according to the university and supporters.
Iran has said it is open to more prisoner swaps with the United States, following the release of American scholar Xiyue Wang in exchange for Iranian Massoud Soleimani.
Iran is still holding several other foreign nationals in high-profile cases, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Mohammad Bagher Namazi.
