Musk denies direct role with Iran in Italian journalist’s release

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.

“Israel’s advance in the region was due to the presence of Iranian militias and Hezbollah. After the liberation of Damascus, I believe that they have no presence at all,” al-Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Thani.

“There are pretexts that Israel is using today to advance into Syrian regions, into the buffer zone,” al-Sharaa said, adding that he would welcome the United Nations peace-keeping forces there.

Israeli military units advanced to the UN-designated demilitarized region that separates Israeli and Syrian-controlled parts of the Golan Heights after president Bashar al-Assad was ousted by opposition forces led by al-Sharaa’s radical Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Al-Sharaa called on Qatar and western powers to help push the Israelis out of the buffer zone.

“Qatar no doubt has a big role to play,” he said. “They will play an active role in continuing to exercise pressure [on Israel to withdraw] together with Western and European nations and the United States of America.”

The Qatari prime minister seconded al-Sharaa’s call for Israel’s withdrawal.

“The Israeli occupation’s seizure of the buffer zone is a reckless and provocative act, and it must immediately withdraw,” he told reporters.

The call for UN peacekeepers in the buffer zone raises the possibility of new mediation efforts, but it remains unclear whether key players including those al-Sharaa mentioned will push for such measures.

Speaking in his valedictory press conference days ahead of the second administration of Donald Trump, Blinken hoped the end of the 15-month war would pave the way for regional peace: "Leaders will have to summon the vision and the courage to do that."

"When (Israel) was attacked in an unprecedented way by Iran - hundreds of missiles, hundreds of drones - not only did we come to Israel's active defense for the first time ever, we brought other counties along to do that, including countries in the region."

Blinken was referring to an April 13 attack by Iran which was largely repelled with help from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

"Israel now sees powerfully what it stands to gain from greater integration in the region, including a common security architecture ... all can see this is a way to effectively isolate the troublemaker in the region, Iran."

Arab countries in the Persian Gulf are deeply opposed to what they see as Iranian encroachment via its armed religious proxies but largely ended confrontation with Tehran after a stalemated conflict in Yemen with the Iran-aligned Houthis.

The outgoing administration of Joe Biden hoped to build on Arab-Israeli normalization pacts from Trump's first term, but their push for a Saudi-Israeli deal stalled after Palestinian Hamas militants backed by Iran attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

The prisoners include Varisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi, whose death sentences have sparked widespread condemnation from human rights organizations.

These women, previously prohibited from family visits in the summer due to their protests against the Islamic Republic's use of death penalty to silence dissent, had been informed that the visitation ban had been lifted. However, as of Sunday, January 12 this year, they have once again been denied contact with their loved ones.

In addition to the visitation ban, two of these women—Maryam Yahyavi and fellow political prisoner Sakineh Parvaneh—have also been deprived of the right to contact their families by phone.

Hussein said it was unacceptable for armed groups to operate beyond Baghdad's writ.

"Many political parties started to raise a discussion, and I hope that we can convince the leaders of these groups to lay down their arms and then to be part of the armed forces under the responsibility of the government."

The push to rein in the armed factions comes as dynamics shift in the Middle East, including the weakening of Iran's allies in Gaza and Lebanon and the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Hussein added that in such efforts as the disarming of militias, the Iraqi government had to walk the tightrope between its ties to both Washington and Tehran.

During Trump's previous presidency, Iraq’s relationships with both the US and Iran were tested, particularly following the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, which led to an Iranian missile attack on an Iraqi base housing US forces.

As Trump prepares to take office, Hussein expressed hope that Iraq could maintain its strong relationship with Washington under the incoming administration.

"We hope that we can continue this good relationship with Washington," Hussein said. "It is too early now to talk about which policy President Trump is going to follow for Iraq or Iran."

Meanwhile, last week, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told the Iraqi prime minister that Tehran-backed militias should be strengthened and the United States must be ejected.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), a coalition of Tehran-backed militants, said in a statement last year they would continue their attacks until the Americans are “expelled from the country, forced to submit and are defeated."