A “prison in prison.” In Tehran, the Evin prison symbolizes the repression regime led by the Islamic Republic. This is where political prisoners, opponents and foreign or binational prisoners are locked, described as “state hostages” by the Western Foreign Ministry. Political and foreign prisoners are often locked in the famous section 209, at the discretion of intelligence services.
This was the case of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, arrested in Iran for more than three years, until the recent twelve -day war that opposed Tehran and Jerusalem. Israeli attacks have attacked the penitentiary establishment, forcing Iran to move certain prisoners, including the two French.
1.80 by 1 meter cell, permanent light …
Stopped in May 2022 on the last day of a tourist trip, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were recently accused of “espionage for the Mossad”, the Israeli intelligence service, “conspiracy to overthrow the regime” and “corruption on earth”. Each of these positions can be responsible for death.
Noémie Kohler, Cécile’s sister, has repeatedly described the terrible experience suffered by the latter: a cell of 1.80 by 1 meter, light in permanence, no book, one or two weekly outputs in a small patio, unhealthy conditions … not to mention the psychological pressure in prisoners during interrogations, or under close surveillance when they can make a very rare call to their family.
Conditions that are similar to “torture”, repeatedly repeated Paris, which filed a complaint against Iran before the International Court of Justice.
“They told me: ‘You can stay here for years'”
These detention conditions, outside of any democratic framework, were reported by other French who also knew the dreaded section 209. Clotilde Reiss, 24 at that time, had been arrested on July 1, 2009 for having visited the main manifestations of the opposition after the disputed selection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Imprisoned 47 days in section 209, he trusted after his release to the French media. “The cell where I spent my forty -seven days is a small 8 m² room with only one tap and a carpet, so it was very dirty, where each of the four prisoners had two roofs and a toothbrush. We slept on the ground. A single window in height so that the light could enter but that we could not see the exterior,” he said, describing “moral moral pressures, an emotional abnellero.
“They told me:” You can stay here for years. “I answered the questions in the shortest possible way and I never asked them when I was going to leave. Because any issue of this type is to open the door to psychological torture,” he said.
Section 209, reserved for political prisoners
Between June 2019 and March 2020, Roland Marchal was arrested in section 209 for “Espionage”. He arrived with banded eyes in the penitentiary center, the researcher came out “just to see the doctor,” as the France-Presse (AFP) informed.
Louis Arnaud, another Frenchman detained between September 2022 and June 2024 and spent six months in section 209, described the AFP a population that fluctuates: “At least about forty permanent prisoners permanently, but this number can triple.”
Section 209 is found in the “public prison”, where political prisoners are joined by prisoners for financial crime, and that brings together some 70 prisoners in the male district and the same number in the women’s district, according to Taghi Rahmani, the husband of the Nobel Peace Prize Narges Mohammadi, which has been incarced for many years. Taghi Rahmani, who lives in exile in France, he himself knew this prison between 1986 and 1994, as well as between 2010 and 2011, before fleeing from Iran.
“I’ve already been locked up for 64 days in these conditions”
In the columns of the Parisian, Narges Mohammadi, in provisional freedom for several months for medical reasons, describes the “intelligence” prisoners who “place in the isolation cell.” “There, it is forbidden to go outdoors. Going to the sanitary facilities is only done in the specific authorization of the goalkeeper, three times a day, at a specific time. The prisoners do not have personal issues. They are only sitting in a small room, in the best case on a carpet, under the constant threat of the security service. I have already been blocked for 64 days in these conditions,” explains the Nobel Prize.
More than ten days after the bombing of the Evin prison, the fate of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris remains uncertain, and their new place of unknown detention. The only information available to her relatives is that the French woman has been transferred in a hurry with other prisoners, without being able to carry personal business, to the Qchak prison, where she stayed 24 hours. “In this prison, I had a heart attack after 24 days of isolation,” recalls Narges Mohammadi.
As for Jacques Paris, he is “alone in a cell.” “He has no furniture. So he continues to sleep on the ground,” said Noemie Kohler. According to Narges Mohammadi, he could have been transferred to the great imprisonment of Tehran, where “hygiene, access to food and attention are very, very limited.”
Source: BFM TV
