Two French nationals have spent nearly three years in Ward 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison, their freed compatriot said, a secret detention facility notorious for harsh conditions which is operated by the country’s intelligence ministry.
In his first interview since his release in June 2024, Louis Arnaud described the harrowing realities of life in the ward, where prisoners face extreme isolation, constant surveillance and relentless psychological pressure.
“Jacques (Paris) and Cécile (Kohler) have been there for almost three years now,” Arnaud told FRANCE 24.
Arnaud, a banking consultant, was arrested in September 2022 while traveling through Iran and was sentenced to five years on national security charges he says were baseless.
Held in Ward 209 for six months, he described his cell as a windowless eight-square-meter room illuminated 24 hours a day and monitored by cameras. “Everything is done so that you are deprived of your humanity,” he said.
"You are completely shut from the world. The world ceases to exist. The only thing that reaches you are the screams and the yells of other prisoners coming from nearby cells. And you are completely also shut from your family and even more from the embassy, of course," he added.
Prisoners in Ward 209 endure blindfolded interrogations, forced confessions and limited contact with the outside world, according to Arnaud.
"It is important to understand that these conditions are there ...This torture aims at when they take you to the interrogations, blindfolded, that you will confess what they've decided that you need to confess. Those can be either signed confessions or sometimes even forced confessions, like it was the case for Cécile and Jacques."
“There is absolute urgency to take them and Olivier out of there,” Arnaud said, referring to another French national detained in Shiraz.
Arnaud said he was allowed only three tightly monitored phone calls with his family during his detention, which he described as “psychological torture.” He expressed deep concern for Paris and Kohler, as well as Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian academic detained for nearly nine years and facing execution.
Arnaud also recounted meeting Mohsen Shekari in prison, the first protester executed following Iran's 2022 protest movement triggered by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody.
“When we met, he told me, ‘You know, Louis, yes, I went to the streets. But you know why? It’s because I just wanted a normal life with a normal job that pays enough so that I can have a little bit of freedom and live a normal life.’” Shekari was executed a few weeks later.
