Tehran - The next trial hearing of French academic Clotilde Reiss, accused of "collecting information and provoking rioters," will take place in Tehran on Tuesday, the ISNA news agency reported.

The agency said Sunday that the trial in a Revolutionary Court will be attended by "the defendant's lawyer and the prosecutor's representative," but did not clarify whether Reiss herself would be present.

The academic was arrested in the wake of the protests that followed Iran's disputed presidential election in June.

She was bailed out in August from Tehran's notorious Evin prison and is currently staying at the French embassy in Tehran awaiting the outcome of her case.

Tehran's chief prosecutor said last Monday that the trial of the 24-year-old Iran specialist would resume following her first court appearance on 8 August on charges of "collecting information and provoking rioters."

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has said that Reiss would not turn up in court unless she received assurances that she could stay in the embassy pending a verdict in her trial.

France has insisted that Reiss is not guilty and has demanded her unconditional release.

Iran's foreign ministry rejected the demand as "unacceptable."

"Clotilde Reiss will not be pardoned under political pressure and nobody has the right to decide on the judge's behalf," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmandoust was quoted as saying earlier this week by the Fars news agency.

Reiss had planned to fly home after completing a six-month teaching and research assignment in the central city of Isfahan. In the closing weeks of her stay she witnessed the protests, took pictures and emailed them to friends.

Scores of reformists, journalists and opposition supporters were jailed following the mass protests over hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, and more than 140 have appeared in mass trials.

AFP/Expatica