Iran releases video purporting to show French citizens’ confessions

Iran has published a video showing two detained French citizens purportedly confessing to acting on behalf of the French security service.

The scenes were published amid ongoing protests across the country that Tehran has sought to describe as a foreign plot, instead of local anger over the death of a 22-year-old, Mahsa Amini, detained by the country’s morality police.

The video released by the state-run IRNA news agency showed Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who are unionists associated with France’s National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training.

Iran, which long has used detained Westerners as bargaining chips in negotiations, has previously offered no public evidence to support the spying accusations.

Meanwhile EU lawmakers have adopted a resolution calling for sanctions against those responsible for the death of Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police.

The resolution, adopted by show of hands, urges the 27-nation bloc to sanction Iranian officials and called for an investigation into her death.