Tehran has announced that all foreigners are detained under Iran’s internal law, and says it is ready for prisoner exchanges
The support committees and relatives of several French people detained in Iran are organizing a support rally on January 28 at the Trocadero in Paris, to raise the alarm about “the inhuman conditions of detention imposed on them”.
“Today seven French people are detained in Iran for dubious reasons,” these commissions complain in a statement released by the relatives of Farida Adelhah, Benjamin Bier, Cécile Kohler and Bernard Phelan.
“Accused of espionage by the Islamic Republic of Iran, these people are being denied their most basic rights, starting with the right to judicial investigation and a trial worthy of their names,” they added.
They underline that French citizens have been deprived of contact with their loved ones “for months and some are going into isolation”, the committees and relatives report, expressing concern for their physical and psychological health and asking “for their immediate release and repatriation “.
The rally which will be “symbolic and peaceful” will be held at 14.00 local time at the Human Rights court in Paris.
Dozens of Western citizens are being held in Iran, described by their supporters as innocents being used by the Revolutionary Guards as leverage, as Iran and major powers try to revive an international agreement reached in 2015 that guaranteed non- military character of Tehran’s nuclear program, accused despite its denials, of trying to acquire everything individually.
Countries like France no longer hesitate to accuse Tehran of holding them “hostages of the state”.
Tehran has made it known that all foreigners are detained under Iran’s internal law, and says it is ready for prisoner exchanges.
French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelhah was arrested in July 2019 and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison for offending national security.
Benjamin Brier was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage.
Cécile Kohler and her partner Jacques Parry were arrested in May while on a tourist trip to Iran.
More recently, the identity of French-Irish Bernard Phelan, who has been held in an Iranian prison since October, has been revealed, as the Iranian regime faces major protests following the September 16 death of Mahsha Amini, who was held by the morality police. for violating the Iranian dress code.
The names of two other French citizens imprisoned in Iran are not known.
At the end of December, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured the “full” mobilization of the French authorities for the release of the seven citizens.
Tehran announced on Saturday the hanging of an Iranian-British former senior Iranian defense official who was sentenced to death for spying for British intelligence, angering and “disgusting” London.
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