Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
RFL/RE – There are now five French nationals being held in Iran, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has said, after Paris last week said it was verifying if a fifth French national had been detained during protests in Iran.
France last week urged its citizens to leave Iran as soon as possible, saying they were exposed to the risk of arbitrary detentions.
“I will speak to the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon to again demand the immediate release of all our compatriots who are held in Iran. There are five at the moment,” Colonna told France Inter radio on October 11.
Protests have broken out in Iran over the last month following the death of a 22-year-old woman. Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for “improperly” wearing the hijab, a mandatory headscarf.
Iran has repeatedly accused outside forces of stoking the protests, without showing any evidence to back up its claim.
On October 6, the state-run IRNA news agency published a video showing two French citizens, Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, “confessing” to being spies and fomenting unrest in Iran. France called the video “shameful.”
Kohler and Paris were arrested in early May in Tehran while on vacation sightseeing in the Islamic republic. Iranian officials have offered no public evidence to support the spying accusations.
