Iran Releases British-Iranian Academic: London

A British-Iranian scientist detained in Tehran in April for his alleged role in an "infiltration network" has returned to London, the Foreign Office said Tuesday.

 "We can confirm that a British-Iranian dual national who was detained in Tehran has returned to the UK," the Foreign Office said in a statement, when asked about Abbas Edalat.

Edalat, a professor of computer science and mathematics at Imperial College London, was arrested by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which raided his home and confiscated his computer, according to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) charity that Edalat founded said he returned to Britain last week.

Edalat's arrest and jailing was "a case of misinformation and misunderstanding by the Iranian security apparatus," CASMII said on its website.

The Foreign Office did not disclose details of the academic's release.

British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 and is serving a five-year jail sentence for sedition—a charge she has denied.

"We continue to take action on all our consular cases in Iran in line with what we believe will produce the best outcomes in their cases," the Foreign Office said.

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Iran Arrests Population Expert Accused of Spy Links

An Iranian fertility expert accused of working with foreign "espionage networks" to downplay the country's population crisis has been arrested, state news agency IRNA confirmed on Sunday. 

It did not give details of the charges, but quoted a lawyer who named the expert as Meimanat Hosseini Chavoshi. 

She is listed by the University of Melbourne as working at its School of Population and Global Health, published widely on Iran's once-lauded fertility and family-planning policies.

On Saturday, hardline newspaper Kayhan reported the arrest of several population "activists... who, under the cover of scientific activities, had infiltrated state bodies.”

It said they manipulated statistics and handed sensitive information to Iran's enemies as part of efforts at "cultural and social invasion".

Iran was once considered an international success story in population control, bringing birth rates down from seven per woman in the 1980s to 1.66 in 2016, according to World Bank figures. 

Then-health minister Alireza Marandi received the United Nations Population Award in 2000 for his family planning initiatives, which had to overcome entrenched taboos in an Islamic society. 

Chavoshi has written extensively about these efforts, which she described as the "fastest fall in fertility ever recorded" in a 2009 book.

But lately there has been concern that Iran overshot its target, with the number of births falling well below the level needed to keep the population growing. 

In 2012, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was a mistake to have continued the family planning policies of the 1990s, and called for new measures to double the population to 150 million.

The Kayhan report said Iran's enemies were using population experts to counter these efforts by downplaying the gravity of the situation. 

"There is evidence these individuals are connected to Western espionage networks," Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a member of parliament's cultural commission, told the newspaper. 

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Four Iran Environmentalists Could Face Death Penalty

Four detained Iranian environmental activists could face the death penalty after the charges leveled against them were changed, the Tehran prosecutor said on Wednesday.

"After completion of the investigation, the charges against four of the defendants have been changed to corruption on earth," said Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, cited by Mizan Online, a news outlet run by the judiciary.

"Corruption on earth" is one of the most serious charges in Iran and can be punishable by death.

The defendants were initially arrested on suspicion of espionage, but Mizan Online did not specify the charges that had preceded Wednesday's alteration.  

Indictments for eight environmental activists have been issued in total and "are ready to be sent to court," the agency quoted the prosecutor as saying.

“The defendants had been notified of the charges," he added.

The prosecutor did not specify the charges against the other four activists, nor did he say when the trial would be held.

The authorities have not released the names of the defendants, who were arrested in January.

Iran has arrested at least a dozen environmental activists this year on charges of spying for foreign intelligence agencies.

One of them, Kavous Seyed Emami, a 63-year-old professor and renowned environmentalist, allegedly committed suicide in prison in February, a fortnight after his arrest.

Military authorities told the judiciary that the defendants had tried to "get close to military centers and get military information about these centers, under the cover of environmental activities," the prosecutor said.

In early September, the head of Iran's Environment Department, Isa Kalantari, called for the fate of the environmental activists to be explained. 

"We are not asking for their release or for their execution, we just want their fate to be clarified. This is part of their citizenship rights," Kalantari said.

Photo Credit: IRNA