March 15, 2019
France has announced it is trying to get Iran to free a French woman, not a dual national who was arrested last October on Kish Island on charges of signing an illegal mining contract.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said February 20 that Nelly Erin-Cambervelle, a 59-year-old businesswoman from the Caribbean island of Martinique, had been on Kish as part of her import-export business and her arrest until now had not been made public.
“She was arrested and she is today in prison since October 21, 2018 on the grounds of having signed an illegal contract and carrying out a non-authorized trip,” Le Drian told the National Assembly.
It isn’t clear what he meant by a “non-authorized trip;” visitors to Kish do not need an Iranian visa.
Word of her arrest first appeared in the local Martinique media a few days earlier where Patricia Gros-Desirs Dicanot, a friend and colleague of Erin-Cambervelle, was quoted as saying the woman had been arrested for illegally buying gold after originally going to Kish to begin negotiating a minerals contract.
Dicanot said the Iranian authorities were demanding 40,000 euros ($45,000) in bail for her release.
“The consular services have been able to meet her several times and are very concerned about her situation,” Le Drian said. “We are in touch with the family and with the Iranian authorities to ensure that Mrs. Erin’s situation improves, while respecting Iranian procedures.”
Iranian officials have not said anything so far.
Relations between France and Iran have been strained over the last six months, despite the two sides committing to upholding the 2015 nuclear deal. Paris has been loudly critical of Iran’s continuing missile tests. It has also been angered by an alleged plot by Iranian intelligence to set off a bomb last summer at the annual Mojahedin-e Khalq rally near Paris.
Martinique is one of several former colonies that are now fully parts of France, electing deputies to the National Assembly and voting for president. Its population is mainly composed of the descendants of former slaves.
One other French citizen is still detained in Iran. She is a dual national and the sole dual national detained in Iran with a clear political background. She is Nazak Afshar, 60, a Franco-Iranian woman who works for the French Foreign Ministry. She had worked as an analyst in the French Embassy in Tehran until she was arrested in 2009 and accused of helping to foment the election protests that year. She was finally released and swiftly left the country, moving to Paris and a job as an Iran analyst in the Foreign Ministry there. She flew to Iran March 12, 2016, to visit her ailing mother and was arrested at the airport on her arrival. She has now been sentenced to six years in prison for activities related to the 2009 post-election protests.