They remain hopeful.
The release from prison of the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in Iran in June 2019, constitutes an "encouragement" for the French still detained in Iran, estimated the families of some of them in a press release released on Sunday.
Sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, the anthropologist was released a few days after Tehran announced a pardon for a "significant number" of convicts.
"We are delighted with this news and hope that it involves the recovery of all of his freedoms", declared in a text sent to AFP the families and support committees of Benjamin Brière, Cécile Kohler, Jacques Paris and Louis Arnaud.
"Fariba's release from prison is an encouragement for us in our determination to obtain the release of all the hostages", they add, thanking "all those who have worked for this hopeful progress".
> To read also: For the families of French detainees in Iran, helplessness and anguish
Six French still detained
Dozens of Westerners are detained in Iran, described by their supporters as innocent people used by Tehran as negotiating leverage.
Countries like France, six of whose nationals are still being held in Iran, no longer hesitate to accuse the Iranian authorities of making them "state hostages".
Frenchman Benjamin Brière was arrested in May 2020, then sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage.
"Breathless after almost three years in detention, he begins his 16th day of hunger strike," the statement said.
Cécile Kohler and her companion Jacques Paris were arrested last May while they were sightseeing in the country.
Tehran accuses them of being spies.
> See also: The French detained in Iran are "pawns in state policies"
"They have only had a brief consular visit and a very short telephone contact with their family in more than 9 months of detention. We have not heard from them since December 18, 2022, we are very concerned", adds the support committee.
More recently, the identity of Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, imprisoned since October, was made public.
His state of health "has deteriorated considerably" since a hunger and thirst strike which he suspended at the request of his family, the signatories say.
As for Louis Arnaud, detained in Evin prison, in Tehran, "he suffers from extremely harsh conditions of detention (...), which makes us fear very heavy physical and psychological repercussions".
The name of the other imprisoned French national is not known.
Fariba Adelkhah "doesn't know if she has recovered all her rights"
Released in Iran after three and a half years of detention, Fariba Adelkhah "does not currently know if she has recovered all her rights", regretted her support committee, "in particular the right to travel abroad and to return to Iran as well as the possibility of exercising her profession as a researcher".
"Fariba did not recover his identity card, his passport or his computer, his address book, his documentation," he adds.
A specialist in Shiism and post-revolutionary Iran at the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, Fariba Adelkhah was sentenced in 2020 to five years in prison for undermining national security, which her relatives still have. fiercely denied.
With AFP
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