Middle East News
Kouchner: Iran must release jailed scholar "immediately"
Jul 7, 2009, 7:52 GMT
Paris - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner demanded Tuesday the 'immediate release' of a young French university assistant jailed by Iranian authorities on a charge of espionage.
'This is a young French girl who must be released immediately because she is innocent and because there is no basis to the accusations,' Kouchner told France 3 television.
Kouchner identified the woman as 23-year-old Clotilde Reiss, an assistant in the French language at the university of Ispahan. He said Reiss was on her way back to France when she was arrested at the Tehran airport.
'This woman is accused of spying. If we understand correctly, it concerns the sending of photographs ... photographs taken with a mobile phone,' he said. 'This is not spying; it can not be. The accusation is absurd.'
In another interview, with France Info radio, Kouchner said that Reiss had also participated at the demonstrations that followed the controversial re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
'Like many of (the demonstrators), she took some photographs in all innocence,' he said.
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