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On 8 April, education unionists everywhere were relieved and thrilled to learn of the release and return to France of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris. Cécile and Jacques are two French teachers and trade unionists who were arbitrary detained in inhumane conditions in Iranian prisons for nearly four years. They addressed a letter to Education International and its member organisations to express their gratitude for the unwavering solidarity of the global education union movement and to deliver a message of hope.

We are sharing their inspiring words full of humanity, courage, and determination:

“First and foremost, we would like to extend our warmest thanks to Education International and its General Secretary, David Edwards, for their unfailing commitment to securing our release. We fully appreciate the magnitude of the work done, particularly with the International Labour Organization’s Committee on Freedom of Association. This tremendous work played a part in our release.

We have been the victims of enforced disappearance on two occasions. We were arrested on 7 May 2022, while visiting the country for tourism, and taken to Block 209 of Evin Prison. This sinister place is well known in Iran as the section where many political prisoners and trade unionists are held. Our families were not informed of where we were being held until October 2022. We had to wait six months for our first consular visit and seven months for our first telephone contact with our families. For months, our families did not know whether we were dead or alive. Following the bombing of Evin on 23 June 2025, having narrowly escaped death, we were taken to a secret location, the exact whereabouts of which remains unknown to us to this day.

We have been the victims of arbitrary detention. We were held in Block 209 of Evin Prison, where detainees undergo pre-trial interrogations. Our “pre-trial detention” in this high-security block lasted three and a half years; 1,277 days of suffering and uncertainty. At no point were we able to meet the lawyers chosen by our families. We were tried by a special court, the Revolutionary Tribunal, which brought nebulous, unfounded charges against us, charges that carried the death sentence, such as “corruption on earth” or “espionage”. We were sentenced to 17 and 20 years in prison, respectively, three and a half years after we were first detained.

Lastly, we were subjected to inhumane interrogation and detention conditions, considered akin to torture under international law. We were held in total isolation for three months, separated and alone, in a 9m² cell. After those three months, we shared the cell with other prisoners, the majority of whom did not speak English. For three and a half years, we suffered from sleep disorders, having to sleep on the floor in a cell fitted with a strip light that was left on 24 hours a day.

Throughout our entire detention, we lived through constant arbitrariness and terror on a daily basis. We had no rights, only rarely granted favours. Our torturers would allow us a phone call to our families or a meeting among ourselves as and when it pleased them. We were subjected to all manner of threats: the worsening of the conditions under which we were detained, threats of life imprisonment, threats to our lives.

Finally, we have lived through two wars, launched by Israel and the United States, in total violation of international law. We narrowly escaped death during the bombing of Evin Prison, in which 79 people were killed. Together with the Iranian people, we have seen our lives threatened on two fronts, caught between the firing line of the regime’s indiscriminate repression and the bombings. Without an end to the war, without peace, human rights and workers’ rights will never be secured.

We want to bear witness, to speak out. What we have lived through constitutes a brutal violation of fundamental human rights. Now more than ever, international conventions that protect not only human rights but also workers’ rights are essential. We are even more profoundly committed to them today.

We reaffirm our full and unwavering solidarity with all trade unionists in the education sector and across all sectors who, the world over, are deprived of their rights to freedom of thought, expression and association. We particularly reaffirm our solidarity with Iran’s teachers and education trade unionists, as well as with Iranian workers and trade unionists in all sectors. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the repression by the Islamic Republic, which, in the winter of 2026, resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. At the time of writing, the arrests, sentencing and hangings are continuing. We stand in solidarity with all those who are imprisoned and tortured on account of their union work and the values they represent.

In closing, we wish to convey a message of hope. Despite the dehumanising treatment they have inflicted on us, they have not broken us. We have never been alone, we have always been supported, because you were there. We are looking to the future, firmly committed to the fight for fundamental rights.

Our fraternal greetings to all members of Education International.

Long live trade union freedom!”

Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris