Roland Marchal, French academic and former hostage in Iran | Pod Hostage Diplomacy

In June 2019, French academic Roland Marchal decided to fly to Iran to spend a six day holiday with his partner. Within moments of landing in Iran, Roland was arrested at the airport by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. He was taken to the notorious Evin prison where he would spend the next nine and a half months. On 20th March 2020, Roland was freed and flown back home to France in a prisoner swap deal between France and Iran. This is an example of Iran’s hostage diplomacy. On this week’s episode, we are joined by Roland Marchal himself.We discuss his arrest, his academic background, how the IRGC treated him, what Roland endured during his time in Evin prison, getting a lawyer in Iran, the Free Roland Support Committee, use of the term “hostage”, should the French government be doing anything better as well as academic freedom.If you prefer, you can watch the video version of this interview on YouTube. For more information on Roland Marchal, please check out the following:Free Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal Support Committee websiteFree Fariba and Roland Twitter accountSocial media hashtag: FreeFaribaGet the latest updates on hostage cases we at Pod Hostage Diplomacy are working on including new episodes by subscribing to our fortnightly newsletter, the Hostage Briefing. Subscribe here.You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Support the show