In detention for more than a year and a half, on hunger strike for nearly a month, the French Benjamin Brière will be tried Thursday by an Iranian revolutionary court. While traveling in a van in Iran, the now 36-year-old man was arrested and imprisoned in Valikabad prison, with no explanation other than a Kafkaesque accusation of espionage, essentially based on the use of an amateur drone near sensitive sites.
On Thursday, he will have to answer before the court of Mashhad, in the east of the country, for this charge and another, equally vague, of “propaganda against the regime”. Espionage is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic. For his sister Blandine, pillar of his support committee, the news of the appearance is a source of concern, which is mixed with a tiny feeling of relief. “Something is finally happening”, she slips, while the case has not moved at all since the hearings of the first months.
“This is the first step in a process that is taking us who knows where. There are so many possible scenarios, immediately adds Blandine Brière. We do not know under what conditions the trial will take place. Will their rights be respected? We can doubt it… We just know that he will be there accompanied by his lawyer.
“Neither a spy nor a threat”
The French counsel for the detained traveler, Philippe Valent, denounced in a press release these conditions of appearance “without having access to either the indictment file or any basic right to defend oneself”. “Benjamin Brière has always vigorously denied the absurdity of the accusations against him, he is neither a spy nor a threat to Iranian internal security and never has been”, completed the lawyer.
To protest against his fate and the stalemate in his case, the French prisoner began a hunger strike almost a month ago. “He is very weak, more and more bedridden even if he can still get up, testifies his sister who was able to speak to him by telephone last week. He is still very determined and still strongly denies these absurd accusations.”
The timetable for what could be the start of an unblocking questions its supporters. On the one hand, Iran is negotiating in Vienna with the major powers to revive the nuclear agreement. Discussions are continuing for the time being and are going less badly than anticipated, although they have still not come to a conclusion after weeks. On the other side, the pressure is growing inside the country.
The Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019, was brutally reincarcerated last week, while she had been under very strict house arrest since October 2020. The judiciary invoked non-compliance with the conditions house arrest, an allegation swept away by the anthropologist’s supporters.
Benjamin Brière is the only Westerner detained by the Islamic Republic not to carry an Iranian passport. Ten days ago, his supporters gathered at the Trocadéro to demand his release. Despite a cold rain and bad winds, a few dozen people were present with signs and photos of the young man with a nice hippie look. His sister told him over the phone: “It warmed his heart.”