Roland Marchal is a French sociologist who was imprisoned in Iran from June 2019 to March 2020. His research focuses on civil wars in Africa. In 1997, Marchal joined the staff of the Centre for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po. His research specialized in civil wars in Africa. [1]
In June 2019, Marchal traveled to Iran to visit his Franco-Iranian Sciences Po colleague Fariba Adelkhah. He was arrested upon arrival at Tehran airport. [2] Adelkhah was imprisoned as well. [3] On 28 October 2019, Marchal's lawyer in Iran said Iranian authorities had accused his client of "collusion against national security". [4] Marchal and Adelkhah were held in Evin Prison. On 7 February 2020, their lawyer said the two had petitioned prison authorities to allow them to marry. [5] Their trial was scheduled to begin on 3 March 2020, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Marchal was released on 20 March 2020 in exchange for an Iranian who was jailed in France. [6]
Evin Prison is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for the housing of Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "Evin University" due to the high number of students and intellectuals detained there. Evin Prison has been accused of committing "serious human rights abuses" against its political dissidents and critics of the government.
The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been regarded as very poor. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions. The government is criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, and for "extrajudicial" actions by state actors, such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians. Capital punishment in Iran remains a matter of international concern.
Abdolfattah Soltani is an Iranian human rights lawyer and spokesman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center. He co-founded the group with Mohammad Seifzadeh and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi. Along with Ebadi, Soltani served as a lawyer for the family of slain Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who was allegedly tortured and murdered in Evin Prison in July 2003. Ebadi and Soltani, along with others, also represented jailed journalist Akbar Ganji during his imprisonment and long hunger strike. Soltani, who won the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, in 2009, served time in prison in 2005 and 2009, and was sentenced to 18-year prison sentence in 2012.
Kian Tajbakhsh is an Iranian-American scholar, social scientist, and urban planner. He has taught at both American and Iranian universities. Tajbakhsh is an international expert in the areas of local government reform, urban planning, civil society capacity building, and international public policy research collaboration. He has also directed international projects in the areas of public health and social policy.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh was the subject of Nasrin, a 2020 documentary filmed in secret in Iran about Sotoudeh's "ongoing battles for the rights of women, children and minorities." In 2021, she was named as of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She was released on a medical furlough in July 2021.
Omid Kokabee is an Iranian experimental laser physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who was arrested in Iran after returning from the United States to visit his family on January 30, 2011. He was initially charged with "gathering and colluding against national security." Still, later, after being acquitted of the primary charges, he was put on trial for “communicating with a hostile government (USA)” and “illegitimate/illegal earnings”. Even though he repeatedly denied all charges against himself, he was finally sentenced to ten years in prison.
The United Arab Emirates Five are five activists who were arrested in April 2011 on charges of breaking United Arab Emirates law of defamation by insulting heads of state, namely UAE president Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice president Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and Abu Dhabi crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, through running an website that expressed anti-government views.
Jason Rezaian is an Iranian-American journalist who served as Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post. He was convicted of espionage in a closed-door trial in Iran in 2015.
Atena Farghadani is an Iranian artist and political activist, who was imprisoned for 18 months. Amnesty International considers her a prisoner of conscience. She was released on 3 May 2016.
Picking quarrels and provoking trouble, also translated as picking quarrels and stirring up trouble or picking quarrels and making trouble, is a criminal offense in the People's Republic of China.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is an Iranian-British dual citizen who was detained in Iran from 3 April 2016 to 16 March 2022 as part of a long-running dispute between Britain and Iran. In early September 2016, she was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of plotting to topple the Iranian government. While in prison, she went on at least three hunger strikes trying to persuade Iranian authorities to provide medical treatment for her health problems. She was temporarily released on 17 March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, but subject to electronic monitoring.
Xiyue Wang is a Chinese-American academic who was imprisoned in Iran from 2016 to 2019 after being accused of espionage.
Ahmad Reza Djalali is an Iranian-Swedish disaster medicine doctor, lecturer, and researcher. He has worked in several universities in Europe, among which Karolinska University of Sweden, where he had also attended his PhD program, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale (Italy), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). He also cooperated with universities in Iran and is in contact with universities worldwide.
Fariba Adelkhah is a French-Iranian anthropologist and academic at Sciences Po who was detained in Iran from 2019 until 2023.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an Australian-British academic in Middle Eastern political science. She was employed as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute and has carried out research into contemporary political developments in the Middle East. The subject of her PhD research was post-Arab Spring Bahrain.
Niloufar Bayani is an Iranian wildlife conservation biology researcher and activist. She was convicted in 2019 of espionage by Iranian authorities in a closed-door trial in Iran, and received a 10-year prison sentence.
Sirous Asgari is an Iranian materials scientist and academic known for his research in lithium ion batteries, phase transformation and diffusion in solid materials. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Sharif University of Technology, Iran.
Béatrice Hibou is a French political scientist, research director and teacher at Sciences Po. She studies political economy and trade policy with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, the role of market forces in shaping state policies and structure and how that affects people's lives.
The trial of Hamid Nouri, an Iranian official detained in 2019 in Sweden, took place in 2022. Nouri was found guilty of being a key figure in the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, where according to different estimates between 2,800 to 30,000 Iranians were massacred. In early 2021 charges of murder and war crimes were filed against the former Iranian prosecutor, where Nouri was accused of "torture and inhuman treatment." The trial constituted the first time someone has been charged in relation to the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. Nouri was charged with more than 100 murders and "a serious crime against international law", and was expected to provide evidence implicating Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran, at the time of the trial.