Two days after Iranian state television aired a video of their “confessions” that Paris condemned, the families of the two French nationals who have been held in Iran for five months complained on Friday of the “inhumane conditions” in which they are being held and of “unimaginable psychological pressures.”
Iranian state television aired what it referred to be the “confessions” of two French nationals who had been detained and charged with espionage in Iran in May.
The French Foreign Ministry advised its people who visit Iran to leave the country as quickly as possible given the risks of arbitrary imprisonment they subject themselves to, in response to Paris’s worry, on Friday.
The Foreign Ministry updated its internet travel advice to note that “all French visitors, including those with dual nationality, are at great risk of arrest, arbitrary detention, and unjust prosecution.”
The families of Frenchmen Cecile Koller and Jacques Barry claimed in a statement obtained by AFP that they were “devastated, worn out, and afraid.” Afraid of “being kept in isolation with one human contact” by the “jailers and investigators,” they continued, “had no news” of Kohler and Barry.
The two French citizens, according to the statement, were “deprived of counsel,” and their requests for consular assistance had been repeatedly turned down.
The airing of the French “confessions” by Iran on Thursday, according to the French Foreign Ministry, was “an inappropriate, repulsive, intolerable, and in breach of international law.”
The government continued, “These two French nationals have been unlawfully held in Iran since May 2022 and are deemed to be hostages of the state. They were recognised as unionists in the sphere of education.
Both the supposed confessions they allegedly made under duress and the justifications for their arbitrary detention, according to her, lack any merit.
The two French were detained during a period when Iranian teachers were protesting for pay and pension reforms as well as the release of their fellow protesters who had been detained previously.
Families of French citizens detained arbitrarily in Iran condemn the practise.
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