France – BFM Alsace, September 02, 2024
For the third school year in a row, Cécile Kohler, detained in Iran, will not be able to see her students again. The French teacher’s colleagues expressed their “despair” on Monday September 2.
Colleagues of Cécile Kohler, a high school French teacher who has been detained for 850 days in Iran with her partner Jacques Paris, expressed on Monday their “despair” at this third back-to-school season without her, and once again called for her release.
“This Monday, September 2, 2024 marks the third school year without Cécile Kohler,” wrote her colleagues at the Paris-based Lycée where she taught, expressing their “concern, sadness and despair at the inhumane and extremely worrying conditions of her detention”.
“It’s never going to stop”
Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were arrested in May 2022 in Iran and charged with “espionage”. They are being held in Tehran’s Evin prison, and their families hear very little from them via telephone calls monitored by the authorities. A third Frenchman, whose name has not been made public, is also being held in Iran, a country accused of practicing “hostage diplomacy”.
“I’m afraid her imprisonment will become commonplace, that people will no longer be aware of the situation,” worries Cécile Kohler’s colleague Guillaume, a history-geography teacher, in the press release.
“Every time I see the days counting down on social networks, I’m horrified – it’s never going to stop,” says English teacher Aurélie.
