The exchange took place last Sunday via the WhatsApp application. “It took place under surveillance. Wearing a veil, Cécile could not speak freely,” said her support committee.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
The family of Cécile Kohler, French held in Iran, was able to speak to him for the first time since her arrest in May, during a video call on WhatsApp last Sunday, announced its support committee on Saturday 24 December. “The interview, which lasted a few minutes, had not been announced. It took place under surveillance. Wearing a veil, Cécile could not speak freely,” said the Liberté committee for Cécile in a statement.
According to family members, “she was crying” when they answered the call. “We felt it very psychologically tested. She suffers in particular to have had no contact with her family in more than seven months,” they added in the press release.
They said they were “particularly alarmed and extremely worried” because they found it “visibly tested psychologically”, but “relieved to have finally had direct contact”, although “far too brief”. >
This call “unexpected, painful and bearer of hope” is perhaps according to the committee “the result of the work carried out by the French diplomatic authorities of the Quai d’Orsay”. The French ambassador to Iran had been able to speak briefly with Cécile Kohler in late November.
arrested in May during a tourist stay
Cécile Kohler and her companion, Jacques Paris, were arrested in May while they were doing tourism in Iran. Tehran accuses them of being spies. According to the press release from its support committee, this teacher and trade unionist is “owned in section 209 of Evin prison, Haute Security Section, sadly famous for her extremely difficult conditions of detentions”, in northern Iran .
They also ensured working with “the committees of other French hostages in Iran to organize common actions”.
His relatives had decided to speak publicly after the broadcast in early October by Tehran of a video presented as “confessions”, according to which Cécile Kohler worked for French secret services. Paris had denounced an “unworthy staging” and mentioned for the first time “state hostages”.
Cécile Kohler “is innocent and must be released and immediately repatriated,” also stamped her support committee, who said that the Frenchman still had no “independent lawyer” and that no date of trial n ‘had been fixed.