Iranian state television has broadcast a filmed “confession” of a French couple taken into custody in the country in May for “spying.”
In the video, which was seen on Thursday, the couple admits to working for a French security agency, Reuters reported.
The footage was aired as Iran experiences another week of unrest in response to the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police in September. At least 92 protesters have died so far in the crackdown by the government.
The Islamic Republic has sought to blame the protests on foreign agents. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed on Monday that the unrest was the work of Israel and the United States.
Iran’s intelligence ministry claimed in May that it had arrested French citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris for encouraging “insecurity” in Iran. France denounced the arrests and called on the immediate release of the couple.
Their televised confession was not unusual for Iran, where such videos are routinely broadcast to the public.
"I am Cecile Kohler, I am an intelligence and operations agent at the DGSE (Directorate General for External Security),” Kohler said in the video. “We were in Iran to prepare the ground for the revolution and the overthrow of the regime of Islamic Iran.”
"Our goal at the French security service is to pressure the government of Iran," Paris added.
The French Foreign Minister said in a statement that the “alleged confessions [were] extracted under duress.” They also called the arrests “arbitrary.”