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Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, two researchers affiliated to theCentre for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, have been in an Iranianprison since June 5, 2019. Alongside fifteen other foreign academics, they havebeen accused of political crimes: undermining national security, propagandaagainst the regime and spying.&#160;Iran’s justice system has itself acknowledged the arbitrary nature of theallegations. In December a court ordered their conditional release and inJanuary espionage charges against Fariba Adelkhah were dropped. Yet it is notjustice, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who determine their fate and harshconditions of detention.&#160;&#160;On 24 December Fariba Adelkhah began a hunger strike. With KylieMoore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic incarcerated since 2018, sherefused food in defence of legal rights and academic freedom throughout theMiddle East.&#160; Their pleas have successfully highlighted the plight of allacademic prisoners. After six weeks of starvation, Fariba Adelkhah’s health isnow in a critical condition.&#160;Despite internationalpublicity and outcry, the academics face acute danger. Fariba Adelkhah andRoland Marchal may soon be brought before Tehran’s Revolutionary Tribunal.There are strong reasons to believe that this trial will not beimpartial.&#160;The ‘shadow power’ of the Revolutionary Guards ultimately rests,constitutionally, on the Supreme Guide of the Revolution. This is why we formallyaddress him, on this Tuesday 11th&#160;of February, the daycommemorating the 1979 revolution, to ask him tosave the IslamicRepublic from the shame of injustice by ordering the Revolutionary Guards tofree Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal and all others unjustly detained.From the depths of Evin prison, Fariba Adelkhah poignantly has called upon us to “save researchers, in order to save research and preserve our history”. This appeal concerns not only the Islamic Republic and the whole Middle East, but academics throughout the world. For there will be no free and fair society without academic freedom.