The day after the broadcast of a “confession” video denounced by Paris, the families of the French couple arrested in Iran for five months alerted this Friday to “inhuman conditions of detention (…) for fallacious reasons”, with “unimaginable psychological pressure”.
“We are devastated, exhausted and terrified”, wrote in a press release the families of Jacques Paris and Cécile Kohler, who claimed to be “without any news” from their loved ones, and feared that they would be “kept in solitary confinement with the only human contact being that of their jailers and interrogators”. The couple are “deprived of lawyers and are repeatedly denied consular access,” the statement also said.
The two French were arrested last May at a time when Iran was the scene of demonstrations by teachers demanding reforms for an increase in their salaries and calling for the release of colleagues arrested during previous mobilizations.
” Of the confession extorted under duress”
The site of the Arabic-language channel al-Alam of the official television broadcast a video on Thursday in which a young woman speaking French claims to be called Cécile Kohler and to be an operational intelligence agent at the General Directorate of External Security ( DGSE), the French intelligence services.
” Of the confession extorted under duress”, “absurd” and “contrary to the values” of the couple, according to their relatives. The Paris and Kohler families denounced a “roughly edited video”, said they were worried to see the couple “emaciated and exhausted”, judging these images “unbearable”. Wishing to be able to “get in touch with them in order to “give them back a little strength”, the families hope that Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris will be “repatriated as soon as possible”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also spoke out against this “revolting video”, which “depicts false confessions, extracted under duress”. “Jacques and Cécile are not agents of the DGSE”, assured their families, according to which the couple went to Iran as “tourists”. “Cécile is a French teacher. Jacques is retired from National Education, “they insisted in the press release.
The FO union, of which Cécile Kohler is a member, denounced in a press release on Friday “a shameful and horrible manipulation, which does not deceive anyone”. The trade union center “denounces the arrest and detention of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris” and “expresses its total indignation at the senseless and absurd accusations by the Iranian authorities”.
The Quai d’Orsay calls on the French to leave the country
The release of the video came amid protests sparked on September 16 by the death of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest by the vice squad.
Iran has repeatedly accused outside forces of stoking protests and said last week that nine foreign nationals, including from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands, had been arrested .
The Quai d’Orsay invited this Friday evening the French passing through Iran “to leave the country as soon as possible given the risks of arbitrary detention to which they expose themselves”, in an update of the advice to travelers on his website.