Two days after Iranian state media aired a video of what was purported to be their “confessions,” which Paris criticised, the families of the two French nationals who have been jailed in Iran for five months warned of their “inhumane conditions” and spoke of “unimaginable psychological torture.”
Iranian state television aired what it claimed were the “confessions” of two French nationals who had been detained and charged with espionage in May.
The French Foreign Ministry advised its people who “visit Iran to leave the country as soon as possible, given the risks of arbitrary imprisonment they subject themselves to,” in reference to Paris’s worry, on Friday.
The Foreign Ministry updated its website with travel advice, warning that “all French visitors, including those with dual nationality, are at great risk of arrest, arbitrary imprisonment, and unjust trial.
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 arrested in Iran since May 2022 and are regarded to be state hostages. They were recognised as unionists in the sphere of education.
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They were arbitrarily detained, she claimed, and “their supposed confessions extracted under duress are without substance.”
The two French were detained when Iranian teachers demonstrated for pay and pension reforms as well as the release of their coworkers who had been detained earlier in rallies.
“Today, Iran aired what it said was the “whole report” on our compatriots Cecil Kohler and Jacques Barry’s “alleged” confession. In this revolting film, fraudulent confessions obtained under pressure are shown “According to the French Foreign Ministry.
The voice on the recording identifies herself as Cecile Koller and explains that she works as an intelligence officer for the General Directorate of External Security (DGSO), France’s foreign intelligence agency.
“Jacques and Cecile are not agents of the General Directorate of External Security,” the two French citizens’ families claimed (DGSO). The two families’ statement made it clear that they travelled to Iran as “tourists,” adding that “Cecile is a French language instructor and Jacques is retired from civic education.”
Families of two French nationals held in Iran protest their detention, calling the conditions “inhuman”
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