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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran state TV says 2 French nationals arrested over protests
2022-05-18
[Rudaw] Iran’s state TV on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of two French citizens, saying they met with protesting teachers and took part in an anti-government rally.

The report identified the two as Cecile Kohler, 37, and Chuck Gay Paree, 69, and said they were not on a tourist visit to Iran. La Belle France had earlier identified the two as a teachers’ union official and her partner on vacation in Iran.

The Intelligence Ministry in Tehran last week only said that it had detained two Europeans.

The TV broadcast footage of the arrival of the two, saying they landed from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
at Tehran airport on April 28. It also broadcast footage of their meetings with Iranian teachers and other activists, as well as their presence at a protest gathering, and also aired a video purported to show the two being arrested while on their way to the Tehran airport to leave the country on May 7.

The report said the two French citizens were "organizing a protest" with the purpose of creating "unrest" in Iran.

Last Thursday, La Belle France condemned the "groundless arrest" of the two and called for their immediate release. La Belle France’s Foreign Ministry said its ambassador in Tehran has already attempted to obtain consular access to the couple and that the charge d’affaires at Iran’s Embassy in Gay Paree has been summoned for explanations.

Another French citizen, Benjamin Briere, was sentenced in January by Iran
...The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both...
to over eight years in prison for espionage, for photographing "prohibited areas" with a drone in 2020 during what he said was a tourist visit in the north of the country.

Briere’s lawyer had claimed his client was being used as a "bargaining chip" in diplomatic negotiations at the time between Iran and Western countries over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

Also in January, Iranian justice ordered the re-imprisonment of Franco-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in 2019, who had for a time been allowed to serve a five-year prison sentence under house arrest. She had been accused of "propaganda against the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s political system" and "collusion to undermine national security."

There have been teachers’ strikes over the past weeks in cities across Iran. Teachers have walked out of their classes to press for better pay and working conditions.
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