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Free Cecile Kohler, French hostage in Iran | Pod Hostage Diplomacy
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Cecile Kohler is a French teacher and a unionist. She has always dreamed of visiting Iran. Last year, both Cecile and her partner, Jacques Paris visited Iran as tourists during the French school holidays and were arrested on their way to the airport by Iranian authorities. They have both been wrongfully imprisoned in Iran since 7 May 2022. The French government has referred to them as state hostages.
In October 2022, both Cecile and Jacques were made to deliver forced “confessions” which were aired on Iranian state media. The French government was outraged by this and strongly condemned it. On this episode, we have the honour of speaking to Cecile’s sister, Noemie Kohler.
Noemie walks us through what happened to her sister, how they found out she was arrested and what they did next. Noemie tells us how heartbreaking it was for her and her family to see her sister being forced to confess to something she didn’t do. She also talks about how her sister is doing physically and mentally as Cecile has been held for many months in solitary confinement, how the Kohler family have been coping with this trauma, the fact that Cecile has not been given access to a lawyer and the Free Cecile public campaign. Noemie and her family have been working with the families and supporters of other French citizens held hostage in Iran. They held a solidarity rally in Paris earlier this year.
We end this episode discussing what the Iranian authorities, French government and European Union should do to free Cecile and other innocent foreign nationals held hostage in Iran. We also discuss how journalists and members of the public can help.
If you prefer, you can watch the video version of this interview on YouTube.
For more information on Cecile Kohler, please check out the following:
- Free Cecile website
- Free Cecile Twitter account
- Social media hashtag: FreeCecile
Get the latest updates on hostage cases we at Pod Hostage Diplomacy are working on including new episodes by subscribing to our fortnightly newsletter, the Hostage Briefing. Subscribe here.
Chapters
1. Intro (00:00:00)
2. Who is Cecile Kohler? (00:02:07)
3. What happened to Cecile Kohler? (00:05:10)
4. What was it like seeing Cecile’s forced confession? (00:08:29)
5. Solitary confinement (00:16:09)
6. How is Cecile coping physically and mentally? (00:18:54)
7. Has Cecile been able to speak to a lawyer? (00:20:24)
8. How is Noemie and her family coping with this trauma? (00:21:02)
9. The Free Cecile campaign (00:23:57)
10. What should the Iranian authorities do? (00:28:39)
11. What should the French government do? (00:30:00)
12. What should the European Union do? (00:30:45)
13. What can journalists and news outlets do to help? (00:33:39)
14. What can the public do to help? (00:35:54)
15. Where can people get more information on the Free Cecile campaign? (00:37:10)
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