00:00In the meantime, though, who am I to deserve such love?
00:03Those are the words of Louis Arnault, a Frenchman,
00:06on his release from detention in Iran.
00:08Now, he was released back in the summer
00:10after almost two years in jail in extremely difficult conditions,
00:15part of it isolated in solitary confinement for some of that time.
00:19Arnault had been on part of a world tour.
00:22He'd long dreamed of visiting Iran to see its rich civilisation,
00:25but he was arrested, along with others,
00:27accused of taking part in protests
00:29following the death of Massa Amini,
00:31the young Iranian Kurdish woman who died after being arrested,
00:34you'll remember, of course, by the Iranian police.
00:36Now, in his first interviews since his release,
00:39Louis Arnault is with us today here at France 24.
00:41Thanks very much for coming in and talking to us today on the programme.
00:45Six months since you were released, others, of course, are still in jail.
00:50Tell us, first of all, why you wanted to come in today
00:54to talk to us on the programme.
00:57Well, I wanted to come to give testimony
01:02of what I've experienced,
01:06of the conditions in which foreign hostages are being held
01:12in Iranian prison, and especially in Evin prison,
01:16and to sensibilise the opinion and authorities
01:23about the destiny of the French and other citizens of Europe,
01:28hostages, and of the repression, the absolute repression,
01:34that the Iranian people and the political opposition
01:39are being subject to.
01:40So, let's be clear, you've been released, but others haven't, have they?
01:45Exactly.
01:47We were seven French hostages at the peak.
01:52Now, three of them are still there.
01:56I was certain that at that time we would be at least two, if not four.
02:01It was very hard for me to see that only one of us would get out.
02:07But also, along with Olivier Grandot, with Jacques and Cécile,
02:12there are also some other European hostages.
02:15One of them is Dr Jalali, who has been in prison for nine years,
02:21almost nine years now, a Swedish citizen,
02:24and he's still on death row.
02:27And you were in contact with all of them while you were inside?
02:31No, because Olivier was detained in Shiraz at the time,
02:37and regarding Jacques and Cécile,
02:40they are still in the detention centre of the secret services.
02:47And you know what that's like.
02:49Tell us what it's like.
02:52The secret services detention centre, called 209,
02:58it's a name that all Iranian people know by heart.
03:04The typical detention conditions are a cell that is roughly eight square metres,
03:11with no window.
03:13You don't know if it's day or night.
03:16You have 24 hours lighting,
03:19and you live under the surveillance of cameras that spy on your every move.
03:27You are being treated like an animal.
03:30Actually, everything is done so that you are deprived of your humanity.
03:37You live, eat, and sleep on the floor.
03:42You are being shouted at.
03:46You're not being talked at.
03:47You're being shouted at.
03:48Barking would be the word.
03:50And you are taken for fresh air once or twice for 30 minutes once a week.
03:58And that's all.
04:00You are completely shut from the world.
04:06The world ceases to exist.
04:08The only thing that reaches you are the screams and the yells
04:13of other prisoners coming from nearby cells.
04:18And you are completely also shut from your family,
04:22and even more from the embassy, of course.
04:25During the six months that I spent there,
04:28I only had three phone calls of only a few minutes each time,
04:34and tightly monitored, and sometimes even directed.
04:39I was being told what to say.
04:42And that's all.
04:43And these calls are more there to add to the psychological distress and to help.
04:51And those calls were with family members or with the authorities?
04:54No, with family members only.
04:57Now, it is important to understand that these conditions are there and this torture,
05:03and this is the word that we need to use here,
05:06these people have become masters in torture.
05:10This torture aims at when they take you to the interrogations blindfolded,
05:17that you will confess what they've decided that you need to confess.
05:23Those can be either signed confessions or sometimes even filled confessions,
05:29like it was the case for Cecil and Jack.
05:32How on earth do you cope with that?
05:36Or do you not cope with it?
05:38It is a very long topic in this many ways,
05:44and each person survives in the way they can.
05:48When you survive, it is important to understand that in this place,
05:56there is no easy day.
05:59Every day, every hour, every minute is a fight for survival
06:05that drains the whole of your forces.
06:09And every day you are on the risk of collapsing
06:12because you will reach that point on some day.
06:16Now, I've spent six months in that place.
06:19That felt like six years.
06:21Olivier Grandot also spent some time there.
06:25Now, Jack and Cecil have been there for almost three years now.
06:33I have met and encountered many other hostages from many different countries,
06:39all with stories more horrible than the other.
06:43But I've never witnessed so much violence,
06:49and I'm extremely concerned with this
06:51because even if I spent myself six months there,
06:55I cannot even begin to imagine the physical and emotional distress they are in.
07:01And there is absolute urgency to take them and Olivier out of there.
07:06So is enough being done to try and make that happen?
07:11I don't know.
07:14I have my full trust in the French ambassador there.
07:19Now, everything is behind the curtain, so...
07:25You have no way of knowing.
07:26There is no way of knowing.
07:27What I'm trying to do here is my own part.
07:30This is the only thing I can do.
07:31And it's not just, of course, French people and people from Europe
07:35and Westerners that we're talking about here.
07:37There are many, many Iranians also who find themselves in similar positions.
07:42I was deeply moved by the way any kind of political opposition to the regime
07:53is being treated with absolute brutality.
07:58At the beginning of my detention during the protest,
08:01I met with hundreds of protesters,
08:03hundreds of them among the tens of thousands that had been arrested.
08:09Now, I've witnessed the way they have been handled.
08:13And for them, there is no limit to the amount of physical, psychological torture,
08:22pressure and blackmail that they can be subject of.
08:26I've seen people with broken ribs, broken arms, broken legs,
08:31with strangulation marks on their necks.
08:34If we are only talking about the physical part,
08:37then, of course, it's not the only part.
08:40And also, I've lived in the second part of my detention
08:44with many, many political prisoners from many different movements
08:50who are being sentenced to a prison time of five years to sometimes up to 30 years.
08:59Some of them have been executed.
09:02Some of them are on the way of being executed.
09:06And they are in distress.
09:07They feel very much that they are being left alone.
09:10Of course, you were accused of being part of the Massaramini protest
09:14with no evidence at all.
09:16And it's inevitable, isn't it, that a lot of other people
09:20who were also in these centres are in a very similar situation.
09:25Maybe they did something which, you know,
09:28us here in the West would consider completely normal,
09:30just joining a demonstration.
09:33Well, in my case, I didn't join the protest myself.
09:40And there was no proof.
09:41I mean, I was sentenced to five years with absolute, absolute no proof.
09:45For them, yes, the Iranian government called it the illegal protest.
09:52But, yes, one of them that I met, Mohsen Shekhari, who was the first one
09:57to be executed at that time, when we met,
10:02he told me, you know, Louis, yes, I got to the streets.
10:06But you know why?
10:07It's because I just wanted a normal life with a normal job
10:12that pays enough so that I can have a little bit of freedom
10:16and live a normal life.
10:18And he got executed a few weeks later.
10:21Finally, just what are your feelings about the whole situation in Iran?
10:25I mean, do you see any sign of hope?
10:27There have been, of course, many, many demonstrations,
10:30many people trying to fight back against the regime,
10:33which so far have been curtailed.
10:35Do you think there will come a point where people are able
10:39to express themselves freely and to go about their lives
10:43in the way they wish?
10:45I'm not sure I'm the one who should be answering this question.
10:50For me, the message I want to convey today is triple.
10:55The first one, the urgency is to take out the French
11:00and other European citizens who are being detained in Iran.
11:04There is absolute urgency to come to their rescue.
11:09That's point one.
11:10Now, point two is to sensitize, to raise awareness
11:19among European authorities and among Europe
11:22that there is a hostage diplomacy,
11:25there is human trafficking going on in this country
11:30that has been going on for 45 years,
11:33but has come to extreme levels in the past years,
11:37and Europe needs to do something about it
11:39so that this finally stops.
11:42And the third point is,
11:44I don't know what Iran is going to be tomorrow,
11:47but the European authorities need to condemn much more firmly
11:53the atrocities and the human rights violations
11:56that are going on on a daily basis in this country.
11:59I mean, we do see things turn around.
12:01Hopefully, we're on the verge, for example,
12:03of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
12:06Things change, don't they?
12:08But that pressure is needed to make that change happen.
12:12There is hope. I have hope.
12:16Thank you very much for coming in and talking to us.
12:18Louis Arnaud, who was in detention in Iran for two years,
12:22as you heard there from his testimony,
12:24for six months in that situation of solitary confinement.
12:28But thank you very much for coming in and talking to us on the program today.
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