Cécile Kohler, leader of the Fnec FP-FO teachers’ union, and her husband, Jacques Paris, were arrested last May in Iran. They are accused of espionage and Iranian television broadcast their “confession” on Thursday. A video that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes as a “masquerade”.
arrested in may
Iran announced on May 11 the arrest of two Europeans “who entered the country with the aim of unleashing chaos and destabilizing society.” The French authorities then denounced an “unfounded” arrest and called for his “immediate release”.
In early July, Tehran accused two “French trade unionists” arrested in May of “undermining the security” of the country.
A French union source had identified them as Cécile Kohler, leader of the Fnec FP-FO teachers’ union, and her husband Jacques Paris. She specified that they were sightseeing in Iran during the Easter holidays at the time of her arrest.
A video of “confession” broadcast this Thursday
The site of the Arabic-language channel al-Alam of the official Iranian television broadcast this Thursday what it presents as “confessions” of espionage by the two French.
In the video, which can be imagined recorded under duress, a young woman speaks French, says her name is Cécile Kohler and she is an operational intelligence agent in the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE, French intelligence service).
She claims that she and her spouse were in Iran “to prepare the conditions for the revolution and the overthrow of the Iranian regime.”
It was, according to his statements, to finance strikes and demonstrations and even to use weapons “if necessary to fight against the police.” According to the man in the video, who also speaks French, the DGSE aims to “put pressure on the government” of Iran.
“State hostages”, according to the Quai d’Orsay
The video was denounced this Thursday by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as “an unworthy, disgusting, unacceptable staging.”
“This masquerade reveals the contempt for human dignity that characterizes the Iranian authorities,” the French Foreign Ministry added in a statement, calling for the “immediate release” of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.
They have been “arbitrarily detained in Iran since May 2022 and, as such, they are hostages of the State”, continues the Quai d’Orsay.
The ministry denounces “practices worthy of the show trials of the worst dictatorial regimes” and assures that “they will not divert international attention from the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people.”
Various arrests of Westerners
More than a dozen citizens of Western countries, most of them dual nationals, are detained or stranded in Iran, which NGOs such as Iran Human Rights condemn as a policy of taking hostages to obtain concessions from foreign powers.
Among them is the Franco-Iranian investigator Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and later sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, something that her relatives have always fiercely denied, as well as Benjamin Brière, arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years. and eight months in prison for espionage, which he contests.
His sister, Blandine Brière, manages to call him every three weeks. She described it this Tuesday as “completely desperate”, before the microphone of the BFM Lyon: “We have no date to hold on to, nothing that gives us hope,” she stressed. Blandine Brière also considered her brother to be a “hostage” of the Iranian regime. She claimed that the French Foreign Ministry is in talks with Iran, but that “is not enough.”
This new case occurs when Iran is affected by a wave of protests caused on September 16 by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, after her arrest by the vice police.
Iran has repeatedly accused outside forces of fueling the protests. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei, thus accused the United States, Israel and their “agents” on Monday of having fomented the anti-government protest movement. Iran also announced last week that nine foreign nationals, including those from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands, had been arrested.
Source: BFM TV
