« C’est pour elle qu’on ne doit pas craquer »: la famille et l’entourage de Cécile Kohler, enseignante et syndicaliste française détenue en Iran depuis mai dernier, s’est exprimée dimanche pour la première fois, auprès de nos confrères of the Latest news from Alsace (DNA)a few days before the creation of a support committee.
“This treatment is inhumane”
“Are we sure she’s alive when we don’t even know where she’s kept?” Their interest is not in killing her and materially she is certainly treated better than Iranian detainees, but this treatment is inhumane,” her father, Pascal Kohler, told the regional newspaper.
Her family, who live in Soultz in the Haut-Rhin, have had no contact with her since her arrest and no French consular representative has been able to see her, she explains our colleagues from Alsace. An “unbearable” situation for the parents, Pascal and Mireille, who are concerned about Cécile’s “psychological state”.
A support committee will be launched in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the day of Sainte-Cécile. Noémie Kohler, his sister, will be the spokesperson.
A video of “confessions” released in early October
Cécile Kohler, 38, was arrested with another Frenchman, Jacques Paris, while she was traveling in Iran, a country she had “for some time” dreamed of visiting. Her relatives have decided to speak publicly after Tehran aired a video presented as a “confession” in early October, according to which Cécile Kohler worked for the French secret services. Paris had denounced an “unworthy staging” and evoked “state hostages” for the first time.
The Quai d’Orsay has invited the French passing through Iran at the beginning of November to “leave the country as soon as possible given the risks of arbitrary detention to which they are exposed”.
Family, friends and colleagues also want to introduce Cécile Kohler. Trade unionist in charge of international relations at Force Ouvrière, this aggregation of modern literature has chosen to continue teaching to “keep in touch with the field, his colleagues and his students”, resumes the DNA.
Cécile is “devotion incarnate”
The International Labor Organization (ILO) this week called for his release “without delay”, as well as that of Jacques Paris, and for them to benefit from “immediate consular assistance”.
Cécile is “devotion incarnate” according to her relatives, a teacher “always available for lessons deemed difficult”, describes Marine, colleague and friend. “A person with an immense joie de vivre” according to Anthony, a former roommate.
Saliha, a maintenance worker at the Les Pierres Vives high school in Carrières-sur-Seine in the Yvelines where Cécile Kohler works, testifies of a “not haughty” teacher who “gave us, maintenance workers, as much importance as the professors”.
