By MATHILDA HELLER

The Jerusalem Post

The investigative chamber at the Court of Appeal of Paris has extended the detention of an Iranian national being held on terrorism charges relating to a radical, anti-Israel Telegram channel, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

The court confirmed the continued detention of Mahdieh Esfandiari, a 35-year-old Iranian national, on Monday. She was arrested on February 28 in Lyon while attempting to leave France and has been held in Fresnes Prison since March on suspicion of being the administrator of a pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas Telegram channel named “Axis of Resistance,” Le Parisien reported on Wednesday, citing the prosecutor’s office.

Esfandiari challenged the decision to extend her incarceration, but the bid failed. The report’s sources said that extended detention comes due to Esfandiari being seen as a flight risk and because of the possibility of evidence being destroyed.

According to Le Parisien, despite not being a national, Esfandiari has lived in the Rhône region for over eight years and has a language degree from the University of Lyon-II.

The same report alleged that the Interior Ministry opened a file on her just three weeks after October 7. It also said that a judicial investigation was subsequently opened by the National Centre for the Fight against Online Hate (PNLH) on November 7, 2024, for “online apology of terrorism,” “incitement to terrorism,” “insults on the basis of origin and religion,” and “refusal to give the unlock codes relating to several social network channels [X/Twitter and Telegram].”

The Axis of Resistance channel was said to “glorify attacks committed against Israel on October 7.”

Le Parisien added that it is extremely rare for a pre-trial detention to be extended in this manner by the investigating chamber, which “testifies to the supposed seriousness of the alleged facts and the stakes of the investigation.”

The report noted that two other people are indicted in the same case as Esfandiari: her partner, Maurizio B., 42, and a third person of French nationality, whose identity has not been revealed.

In another layer to the case, the PNLH investigators found that the individuals operating this pro-Iranian and pro-Palestinian Telegram channel were also active on far Right figure Alain Soral’s website, Le Parisien added. Soral – considered to be one of France’s most prolific conspiracy theorists – has been convicted on several occasions of antisemitism and holocaust denial.

Between May 2020 and May 2024, his site, “Égalité & Réconciliation,” hosted a radio program also called Axis of Resistance, which featured Hezbollah songs and Quranic verses as its jingle and adopted a pro-Iranian stance.

This led investigators to discover possible Iranian funding. “According to the findings, Tehran is believed to have provided sums of money to those implicated, notably for the purchase of computer equipment used in propaganda activities,” the report added.

Soral is wanted by the courts but is exiled in Switzerland currently.

What has Iran said?

Iran’s judiciary spokesperson, Asghar Jahangir, in a press conference last month, called her detention a “blatant violation of freedom of expression and personal security, as emphasized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

“We consider the arrest of Mahdieh Esfandiari by the French judiciary and security apparatus to be judicial hostage-taking. This is an inhumane act, and we are pursuing her release with full strength and determination,” said Vahid Jalalzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for consular, parliamentary, and expatriate affairs, in June.

Her sister, Mohaddeseh Esfandiari, echoed similar rhetoric by calling it “hostage-taking” during an interview with Iran’s state television on Tuesday and saying her sister is denied the right to wear her hijab.