France demands release of student Clotide Reiss by Tehran

          
          Printer Friendly lttp://wwwtincsonllne.co.ulc'tol/iews/world/europe/art 1c1e6656429.ece. . .
          TIMES
          From Times Online
          July 7, 2009
          France demands release of student Clotilde Reiss by
          Tehran
          Charles Bremner in Paris
          France today demanded the immediate release of a 23-year-old student from Lille
          who has been jailed in Iran on spying charges after she took photographs at a
          demonstration last month.
          President Sarkozy dismissed as “pure fantasy” the charges against Clotilde Reiss, a
          politics student and an assistant teacher at Isfahan University, who was detained at
          Tehran airport last week on her way home to France.
          “Let me say in the clearest and simplest way possible: we demand the release of
          our compatriot,” Mr Sarkozy told a joint news conference with Luiz Inâcio Lula da
          Silva, the President of Brazil.
          “These accusations of espionage are pure fantasy and there is no reason for them. I
          do not doubt for an instant that she will be released ‘very, very soon.”
          Mr Sarkozy added that he disapproved of such “methods”.
          It emerged last night that Ms Reiss, a graduate student at the eminent Lille Political
          Sciences Institute, had been arrested last Wednesday as she was leaving for home
          via Beirut after a five-month stint at the university. The French authorities made her
          arrest public last night after failing to win her release.
          The Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian Ambassador to Paris yesterday to
          demand her released.
          France also alerted its European Union partners and said it was seeking an EU-wide
          response to Iran after the arrest of the academic and the detention of staff at the
          British Embassy in Tehran. All but one of the nine embassy staff detained in Tehran
          have now been freed.
          I
          a
          uiotilde Reiss was arrested at
          Tehran airport as she
          attempted to return to France
          Iran alleges that Ms Reiss took a photograph with her mobile telephone of demonstrations in Isfahan against the
          re-election of President Ahmadinejad and e-mailed it to a friend in Tehran. “That is not espionage and cannot be so.
          The accusation is absurd,” Dr Kouchner said. “She was a classic young student who was doing her job, who
          witnessed protests like millions of Iranians.”
          Until now, France has not been attacked, as Britain has been, by the Iranian authorities. Yesterday, in the Alpine
          resort of Evian, President Sarkozy told Gordon Brown that Britain had France's total backing in Iran. “The Iranian
          people deserve better than the leaders they have today,” he said.
          Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, said that France wanted Ms Reiss's case to be resolved rapidly and
          did not intend to “make a big issue between two countries out of this”.
          He added: “I do not think the Iranian authorities can think for a second that what is happening in their streets — the
          opposition to a government — can be settled by arresting innocent people. An innocent French person, what's more.”
          Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The limes and The Sunday Times, or place your advertisement.
          Times Online Services: Dating I Jobs I Property Search I Used Cars I Holidays I Births, Marriages, Deaths I Subscriptions I E-paper
          News International associated websites: Globrix Property Search I Milkround
          1 of 2
          9/24/2009 4:03 PM