The 64-year-old travel consultant was arrested on October 3 during a trip as part of his activities as a consultant in Iran for a travel agency,” according to his sister Caroline Massey-Phelan.
Irish Foreign Minister Michal Martin today pledged that Dublin would make every effort to secure the release of Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan arrested in Iran, whose health is causing concern.
The 64-year-old travel consultant was arrested on October 3 during a trip as part of his activities as a consultant in Iran for a travel agency,” according to his sister Caroline Massey-Phelan.
“We will do everything possible,” Ireland’s foreign minister said when asked during a British-Irish conference in Dublin, as Bernard’s family called on Ireland to step up its efforts to free him.
“I think we’ve been very proactive about Bernard’s situation,” said Michal Martin, “we’ve asked for his release on humanitarian grounds from the Iranian government.”
“We will respond to the family,” he added.
This morning, Caroline-Masé-Phelan made an appeal on RTE radio to the Irish Foreign Office.
“Intensify negotiations to get Bernard out of there,” she said, stressing that her brother’s health is “extremely bad” because of the hunger and thirst strike he is carrying out.
“We still fear for his life,” she said, explaining that her brother suffers from heart disease and a bone disease that requires medical attention.
The Franco-Irish was arrested shortly after mass protests began in Iran over the death of Mahsha Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died after being arrested by morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Since then, dozens of Western citizens have been arrested. Their own people describe them as innocents used by the Revolutionary Guards as leverage in Iran’s relations with the West.
Faced with Tehran’s intransigence over demands from French and Irish authorities for his release, the Franco-Irish went on hunger strike on New Year’s Day before refusing to even drink water this week, causing his health to rapidly deteriorate.
A French diplomatic source told AFP that Bernard Phelan showed “serious signs of physical and psychological exhaustion”.
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