200 days behind bars: The French ‘women’s rights’ charade
Hoda Yaq
Press TV
On March 3, 2025, Mahdieh Esfandiari, a 39-year-old Iranian academic living in Lyon, a city in east-central France, was arrested by French security officers after a surprise raid at her home.
Her family characterized the situation as kidnapping or hostage-taking, stating that officers arrived without prior notice, placed her into a van, and held her without formal charges or access to legal counsel for several months.
For more than 50 days, she was not permitted to use the phone, was kept in solitary confinement, and was unable to contact family or friends. This continued until mid-April.
According to Mahdieh’s communication with her family, her interrogation in French police custody involved repeated psychological pressure. Officers removed her hijab (Islamic head covering), as her sister also stated in a recent interview with Press TV.
She had no choice but to use her bedsheet to cover her head each time she offered her daily prayers, and she was also subjected to a full strip search by French male officers.
Despite spending months in solitary confinement without seeing the sky or sunlight, the authorities in France refused to return her hijab, denying her even a few minutes under the sun’s rays.


















