The French Foreign Ministry has summoned the Iranian ambassador over the "intolerable" detention of two French scientists, the ministry said in a statement.
The envoy "was reminded of France's demand that Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal be released without delay, and that the Iranian authorities show display transparency concerning their situation," AFP reported, quoting the ministry's statement.
Adelkhah and Marchal, both researchers at Sciences Po in Paris, were detained in Iran over spying charges in June. They are being held at Evin Prison in the north of Tehran. This prison is being overseen by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the web site of the detained scientists' support committee says. According to Sciences Po, Adelkhah and another detained academic, Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, had started a hunger strike this month.
Fariba Adelkhah was born in 1959 in Iran and came to France in 1977 to pursue her university education. She is a specialist in social and political anthropology. According to the web site of Sciences Po, her current research focuses on the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Roland Marchal is a sociologist and one of the most internationally renowned specialists on Somalia.
