Cécile Kohler and her companion Jacques Paris were arrested in May 2022 while sightseeing in Iran. Tehran accuses them of spying.
By VP with AFP
© STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
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Un strong moment. A rally for the release of Cécile Kohler, a French teacher and trade unionist detained in Iran for ten months, took place on Saturday afternoon in her hometown of Soultz-Haut-Rhin. Support concerts are also organized throughout the weekend in this town near Mulhouse to raise awareness of the situation of Cécile and other French and Europeans detained in Iran.
“We hope that it reaches his ears in Iran, in his cell, that it [peut] give her strength to know that there are people who are fighting for her”, explained to Agence France-Presse her sister Noémie Kohler, reached by telephone.
Cécile Kohler and her companion, Jacques Paris, were arrested in May 2022 while sightseeing in Iran. Tehran accuses them of being spies.
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His relatives worried
Cécile Kohler’s family has only spoken to her twice since her arrest. “The last news we had was the call she made to my parents on February 22. She cannot speak freely because she is always very closely watched during these calls,” explained Noémie Kohler.
“We are very, very worried because we know very little about her conditions of detention and what we know is not to reassure us: after months of solitary confinement, the fact that she can only go out three times a week from her cell, that she has had only one book in almost a year, that she has so little contact with her family and that she has had only one consular visit …”, she listed.
Regarding the progress of his case, “we are in complete limbo, we have no information on a possible trial”. Officially, six French people remain detained in Iran.