France urges Iran to ‘drop’ charges against suspected spy

After Iran released a French suspect in the post-election unrest, Paris calls on Tehran to take a step further and ‘drop’ all charges against the academic.

Clotilde Reiss, a female French University teaching assistant who was detained on charges of espionage in the course of Iran’s post-election unrest, was released on a USD 300,000 bail on Sunday, according to IRIB.

Following her conditional release, the young female academic is staying at the French embassy in Tehran pending the verdict in her case.

French Foreign Ministry Spokesman Romain Nadal told a news conference on Monday that Paris demanded Tehran to drop the charges against Reiss as well as a local Embassy staff, Nazak Afshar, who was conditionally released last Tuesday.

“We demand that the legal proceedings against Clotilde Reiss and Nazak Afshar, which nothing can justify, are dropped as soon as possible,” he said.

Reiss, who was working in Iran as a lecturer in the Isfahan Technical University, was detained on July 1 and later stood trial on charges of espionage.

During her court address in a mass trial on August 8, she confessed to taking part in ‘illegal protests’ and writing to the French embassy and about 50 friends or members of her family about the country’s post-election developments.

Any charges of espionage have been rejected outright by France.

Tehran accuses Western countries for instigating the post-election protests in Iran, calling on them to adopt a policy of non-interference towards the country.