French, Australian academics jailed in Iran on hunger strike

A French-Iranian researcher locked up in Tehran’s torious Evin Prison has gone on a hunger strike along with an acemic and co-prisoner from Australia, a rights group said. hunger strikes by Iranian-born French researcher Fariba elkhah and Kylie Moore-Gilbert were revealed by Center for Human Rights in Iran. y were confirmed by Sciences Po’s research centre CERI, where elkhah works. French researchers expressed ir concern in tweets and press commentaries.

Letter was sent yo Center for Human Rights

An open letter was sent to U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran signed with names of two women after it was received “by a source with contacts inside prison,” centre said in a Christmas Eve statement. centre quoted letter as saying that women were starting “ir joint hunger strike in name of acemic freedom” on behalf of researchers like mselves “unjustly imprisoned on trumped-up charges.” letter said y h been subjected to psychological torture and human rights violations. It said y are being held in Ward 2-A, allegedly run by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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Iranian officials disclosed in July arrest of elkhah, a prominent anthropologist who often travelled to Iran for her research on post-revolutionary Iranian society. y said she was arrested on espion charges. Her friend and fellow researcher Roland Marchal were arrested as he tried to visit her, France revealed in October. He is being held in a men’s ward.

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Scholar jailed since October 2018

Moore-Gilbert, a University of Melbourne scholar on Middle East, has been jailed since October 2018. On Thursday, Center for Human Rights in Iran published a letter she dressed in June to Australia’s prime minister, pleing for help, and an update this month in which she begs him “to take immediate action.” Two Australians were freed from Iran in October while Australia freed an Iranian in what appeared to be a prisoner swap. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said at time that Moore-Gilbert’s situation was “more complex.” Meanwhile, Iran indicated a willingness to make prisoner exchanges with United States after freeing a Chinese-American scholar from Princeton held for three years in a prisoner swap.

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A fellow scholar and friend of elkhah, Jean-Francois Bayart, and researcher Beatrice Hibou wrote in Thursday’s Le Monde newspaper that women’s determination should t be doubted. y ted that elkhah h earlier created a discussion group for women on Telegram, an encrypted social network, calling it Lionesses. “Having kwn her for a long time, we kw she is rey to die like a lion to defend her freedom, that of her job and her dignity,” y wrote.

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