Dear Fariba, Roland and Kylie
We wish to let you know that we held a meeting on the 17th February 2020 in Bush House King’s College London and that we have created a branch of the Support Committee in London for the three of you.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we can’t stop thinking about you and your ordeal. At the meeting there were old friends of yours; academics who have read your books and articles; Doctoral and Master’s Students who are inspired by your examples of courage and lucidity about the situations you have described; previous detainees who have known what you are suffering now; were all gathered together to sign this postcard. We hope you will have an opportunity to read when you come home.
We, professors and scholars of King’s College London, Oxford, Birkbeck, Goldsmith, Cambridge and Queen Mary, are all asking for your immediate and unconditional release from prison. Your detention is legally and ethically unjustifiable. It poses a threat to all academics and to academic freedom in general. Iranian society values knowledge, it’s universities and academics, as do we. It is in that spirit that we are calling on the regime to implement your release with immediate effect. We will continue to mobilise both within our institutions and beyond in your support.
Signed by Vivienne Jabri, Mervyn Frost, Nick Michelsen, Didier Bigo, Susan Martin, Aggie Hirst, Pablo de Orellana, Claudia Aradau, Sarah Perret, Leonie Ansems de Vries, Emma Mc Cluskey, James McDougall, Ramon Sarro, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, David Styan, Evelyn Ruppert, Christopher Clapham, Elspeth Guild, Engin Isin, Christine Cheng, Ziad Elmarsafy, Stacey Gutkowski, Alvina Hoffmann, Kerry Goettlich, Andrew Brown, and many other participants
UPDATE 5 March 2020
Today Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal have been condemned to 9 months of imprisonment. Click here for more updates. We do not forget them.
UPDATE 17 March 2020
“Is research getting more dangerous? Roland Marchal’s plight suggests so” in African Arguments. Click here for article
UPDATE 20 MAY 2020
Fariba Adelkhah sentenced to prison in Iran, listen here on BBC.
UPDATE 8 June 2020
Message from Professor Alain Dieckhoff, Director of CERI Sciences-Po Paris: here.
RCIR: Research Centre in International Relations 