"Get him out of there at all costs": the sister of the Frenchman detained in Iran and on hunger strike testifies
This undated mimeographed photo obtained on the Twitter account of Saeid Dehghan, lawyer for French national Benjamin Brière.
AFP - -
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Accused of espionage, a young French tourist detained in Iran for a year and a half has gone on hunger strike, according to his family.
Benjamin Brière's sister, Blandine, is worried about his conditions of detention and calls on the French government to urgently obtain his release.
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Benjamin Brière, 36, was arrested in September 2019 after using a recreational drone to take photos, as he crossed Iran as a tourist.
He had been traveling by van since 2018. Accused of espionage, he waits to be determined on his fate in an Iranian prison in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran.
Espionage carries the death penalty in this country.
“
He went on a hunger strike on December 25 because they refused him a call to us, to his family for the holidays that he was supposedly given normally.
So he started this hunger strike, to highlight the absurdity of the situation which has not changed for twenty months.
And he does not know if he will be able to call his family the next time he is supposed to have the right
”,
testifies his sister Blandine, joined by
Muriel Paradon
, of the International service of RFI.
Terrible prison conditions
The living conditions in the cell are also very difficult. “
No one speaks either French or English. It is a cruel lack of privacy because there are twenty or more in a cell. It's very complicated; there are fellow prisoners who are condemned to death, ”
describes Blandine Brière.
“
Our government is surely doing what it can to get Benjamin out of there,”
she continues.
Now that is not enough, we are asking for much more and even more now that Benjamin is putting his health in danger. Let us get out of this aberration, that we get out of this delirium where a French tourist who was walking around is today accused of espionage. You have to get him out of there at all costs! After a year, Benjamin is still deep in Iran with no prospect.
"
The French Foreign Ministry said Monday to follow his case with "
the greatest attention
" and to have "
regular contacts
" with him under consular protection.
"
He benefited from another consular visit on Tuesday, December 21 and was contacted by our embassy today,
" added the deputy spokesperson of the Quai d'Orsay during an electronic press briefing.
Dozens of jailed binationals
In recent years, the Islamic Republic has carried out several exchanges of detainees with foreign countries.
Iran retains more than a dozen Western passport holders, most of them binational, which NGOs condemn as a hostage-taking policy designed to obtain concessions from foreign powers.
But Benjamin Brière is the only known Westerner detained in Iran who does not have an Iranian passport.
On this holiday, we have a special thought for Fariba who has been detained in Iran for 933 days.
Fariba has been detained in Iran for 933 days.
She's in our thought.
# FreeFariba # FreeThemAll # EndHostageDiplomacy pic.twitter.com/qKtn67Z53u
- Free Fariba Adelkhah (@FaribaRoland) December 24, 2021
Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah has been detained since June 2019 and was sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for attacks on national security.
She has been under house arrest since October 2020. Her companion Roland Marchal, also a researcher, was detained with her before being released in March 2020, after Paris freed Iranian engineer Jallal Rohollahnejad, whom the United States demanded extradition for violating US sanctions against Iran.
(With
AFP)
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