The Frenchman Benjamin Brière has just been sentenced to 8 years in prison for espionage, according to his lawyer, who denounced “a masquerade of trial”. Benjamin Brière, 36, was also sentenced to an additional eight months in prison for “propaganda” against the Iranian regime, his lawyer said. His crime? Taking photos with a drone in a natural park and criticizing on social networks the compulsory wearing of the Islamic veil for Iranian women, while taking a van tour in several countries.
The latest photos from his Instagram account show it in Iran, philosophizing on the happiness of traveling freely in a magnificent country, when most of the world was then living in confinement due to the coronavirus crisis. A dream that did not last since he has been detained since his arrest in May 2020 in Vakilabad prison in Mashad, in the north-east of the country, where he appeared for the first time since his arrest in court. His family had relaunched the mobilization a few weeks ago, while the Frenchman began a hunger strike at Christmas.
Bargaining leverage?
They are currently a dozen Westerners, some of whom are Iranian dual nationals, retained by the Tehran regime. This is one of the regime’s hallmarks: no other country uses the “hostage strategy” so systematically. If Iran finds itself in a weak position, or if the regime needs leverage in international talks, a life is crushed. Tehran recently rejoiced that France is no longer playing the role of “bad cop” in the nuclear negotiations, which resumed after Joe Biden came to power. But, for its part, Iran does not tire of the role of rogue state and monetizes its hostages, to free its nationals abroad, influence the position of a state on nuclear power, release frozen funds. ..
This condemnation of Frenchman Benjamin Brière comes as the talks on the nuclear issue seem to have reached a turning point, for the first time since their difficult resumption last November. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday that his country could start direct negotiations with Washington if necessary to reach a “good agreement” on nuclear power, while relations are broken between the two countries, since the famous hostage-taking at the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Iran currently negotiates only with Germany and the four permanent members of the UN Security Council: France, China, Great Britain. Britain and Russia. The Americans, for their part, seemed ready to begin a direct dialogue. US diplomatic spokesman Ned Price has indeed asserted that at the current rate of Iran’s nuclear advances, we have almost no time “to reach an agreement. “We are ready to meet them directly. “, he added, recalling that Washington has judged from the start that “it would be more productive”. Iran has continued since 2019 to gradually withdraw from its commitments on the nuclear issue, since Donald Trump denounced in 2018 the historic agreement concluded in 2015.
In this vague diplomatic conjuncture, these women and men hostages seem to have little weight in the Iranian political edifice, prisoners of an absurd system and diplomatic stakes beyond them. Since its advent in 1979, the Islamic regime has developed all the weapons within its reach – interference in the affairs of its neighbours, nuclear ambitions, pressure on individuals – to play in the big leagues. But it is less and less certain that the repeated use of these unsavory actions is worthy of Iran’s image of itself, and really serves its long-term interests.