The French Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it was "extremely worried" about the health of a French-Irish citizen held in Iran, as UN rights experts accused Tehran of institutionalised "hostage-taking".
The comments came as an Iranian newspaper said authorities had arrested a German for allegedly photographing oil installations in the south-western province of Khuzestan.
About two dozen foreigners and dual-nationals are detained in Iran, as hopes fade of reviving a 2015 deal on Tehran's nuclear programme and as four months of anti-regime demonstrations rock the country.
Paris is "extremely worried" about the poor health of Bernard Phelan, which "requires appropriate medical monitoring", the ministry said.
Mr Phelan, 64, a travel consultant based in Paris, was arrested in October and is being held in Mashad in north-eastern Iran, Irish media reports say.
Ireland said it had "been providing consular assistance, in close co-ordination with France, since the outset".
His sister, Caroline Masse-Phelan, told AFP he had not been put on trial but was arrested on accusations of spreading anti-regime propaganda.
Ms Masse-Phelan said he was already on a hunger strike and had started to refuse water on Monday.
He is one of seven French nationals held arbitrarily in Iran, the Foreign Ministry said.
Freed Iran prisoner Baquer Namazi - in pictures
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US citizen Baquer Namazi is greeted by an official upon his arrival in Oman. Oman News Agency -
The former UN official, 85, was arrested in February 2016 while trying to visit his son, who is also detained in Iran. Oman News Agency -
Mr Namazi will have an operation at the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, the family said. Courtesy of Namazi family/via Reuters -
Mr Namazi with his son, Siamak. Babak Namazi -
The Namazi family says negotiations with Iran should start only after foreign prisoners detained unfairly are released. Family handout
Also on Tuesday, UN rights experts condemned the detention of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was arrested in Iran in February 2022.
Mr Vandecasteele, 41, was last week handed sentences totalling 40 years on a range of charges, including "espionage".
But with the sentences to run concurrently, he will serve 12 and a half years in jail, the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported. He was also sentenced to 74 lashes.
"We believe Mr Vandecasteele has been arbitrarily deprived of his liberty and is a victim of enforced disappearance," a group of eight independent experts said.
They warned that his "right to a fair trial before an independent and impartial tribunal has been violated".
"These are flagrant violations of Iran's obligations under international law," they said.
The experts called on Tehran to "end the institutionalised practice of hostage-taking and to release the many foreign and dual nationals who remain arbitrarily detained".
Tehran does not recognise dual-nationality for its citizens, and has insisted that all of the foreigners held are on the grounds of domestic law.
Supporters of Mr Vandecasteele and rights groups contend he is being held as part of an attempt by Tehran to pressure Belgium to release an Iranian diplomat jailed for terrorism.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori released – in pictures
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe reunited with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and their daughter, Gabriella, after being held for six years in Iran. Photo: @TulipSiddiq via Twitter -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, centre, with their families. Photo: @lilika49 via Twitter -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter at RAF Brize Norton airbase. EPA -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella, husband Richard and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at RAF Brize Norton. EPA -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released in March 2022. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori with the cabin crew in Brize Norton. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori as their plane flies over London. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe sits in a plane en route to London after taking off from Teheran. Reuters -
Mr Ashoori gestures as he sits in the plane heading to London. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 as she prepared to fly back to the UK, having taken her daughter Gabriella to see relatives. AFP -
She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one under house arrest. Photo: Tulip Siddiq / Twitter -
Richard Ratcliffe with daughter Gabriella outside their house in London on Wednesday. AFP -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori arrive in Oman en route to the UK. Photo: @badralbusaidi / Twitter -
Mr Ratcliffe went on a hunger strike in October 2021 in protest at the UK government’s failure to secure his wife's release. AFP -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe boards a plane as she prepares to leave Tehran. Reuters -
Mr Ratcliffe told the media that the family plan to find solace elsewhere for a few days. Reuters -
Gabriella was not yet two when her mother was arrested. Photo: Tulip Siddiq / Twitter
Meanwhile, Iran's Jam-e Jam newspaper said on Tuesday that authorities had arrested a German national "while taking pictures of oil facilities in Omidiyeh", without providing details on his identity or date of arrest.
Germany said it was aware of the reports and that its ambassador was "currently seeking to shed light on this matter".
A US citizen jailed in Iran, Siamak Namazi, had announced a seven-day hunger strike starting on Monday as he implored President Joe Biden to give greater priority to his case.
Mr Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015, launched the hunger strike on the anniversary of the 2016 release of five other Americans as Iran and the US implemented the landmark nuclear deal brokered by then president Barack Obama.
Mr Obama's successor, Donald Trump, left the deal but obtained the release of two more Americans from Iran in prisoner swaps.
The Biden administration sought to restore the nuclear deal and made it clear it could not go forward without the release of imprisoned Americans.
But Mr Biden has acknowledged that the deal is effectively dead after painstaking negotiations, and as attention focuses on Iran's deadly crackdown on protests.
Iran's plots against foreign officials and dissidents — in pictures
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Relatives carry the body of Hassan Al Qahtani outside the Grand Mosque in Riyadh in May 2011. The Saudi diplomat was shot dead in Karachi by a man believed to have been linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. Reuters -
Iran has been attempting to kill or capture former US president Donald Trump after he ordered the air strike that killed the IRGC's Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, in January 2020. AP -
Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo is believed to have been Iran's second target, after former national security adviser John Bolton, marked for assassination. AP -
Gen Kenneth McKenzie, former commander of the US Central Command, has been high on Iran's list of people to be killed in retribution following Suleimani's death. AFP -
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, secretary general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, was shot dead in July 1989 by suspected Iranian agents in Vienna. Getty -
Shapour Bakhtiar, the last Iranian prime minister under the Shah, was killed at his home in August 1991 by assassins believed to have been sent by Tehran. AFP -
Iranian poet and entertainer Fereydoun Farrokhzad's death has never been solved but German police believe he was killed by Iranian operatives.
Iran has been rocked by demonstrations over the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for wearing her hijab "inappropriately".
Authorities have made thousands of arrests amid a bloody crackdown that has claimed hundreds of lives, and have executed four people in connection with the unrest.
The protests have further strained ties between Iran and the West, with Tehran accusing some foreign countries of fomenting what it calls "riots".
French-Irish national Mr Phelan was travelling through Mashad during the protests when he was arrested.
Iran said Saturday it had executed a British-Iranian dual national, Ali Reza Akbari, for spying for the UK, sparking international outrage.
The UN experts said they were "appalled by Akbari's execution", pointing out that he was reportedly tortured and "forced to make false confessions".
He had been arrested more than two years earlier.
