Iran releases Iranian-Canadian academic held since June

Iran said on Monday it freed a Canadian-Iranian academic detained since June, a week after the two nations began talks on a potential restoration of diplomatic relations broken in 2012.

Homa Hoodfar, 65, is a teacher at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and an expert on gender and Islam.

"Homa Hoodfar, the retired professor of Canadian universities, who had been detained in Iran based on some accusations, was released this afternoon for humanitarian reasons including illness," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi.

He said Hoodfar had left the Islamic Republic and was traveling to Canada via the Gulf Arab state of Oman.

Oman confirmed it had arranged for a royal air force plane to fly Hoodfar to Muscat on her way to Canada, heeding a Canadian request to help in her release, state news agency ONA quoted a Foreign Ministry statement as saying.

Hoodfar travelled to Iran in February to visit family and conduct academic research, her relatives told Middle East Eye in June.

She was first arrested and interrogated in March and released on bail. The Counter Intelligence Unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards confiscated her personal belongings, documents and passport, according to the family. She was detained again on 6 June.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least seven dual-nationality citizens or expatriates visiting the country over the past year.

Oman, an ally of the West that also maintains good relations with Tehran, has previously helped facilitate prisoner exchanges between Iran and the United States.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Canadian counterpart Stéphane Dion met last week during the annual UN General Assembly in New York for the first time since Tehran and Ottawa severed relations four years ago.

Canada shut its embassy in Iran and expelled all Iranian diplomats in Canada after accusing Tehran of posing the biggest threat to global security, mainly over its nuclear program and military assistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.