PARIS: Benjamin Briere, a French national held in Iran, has gone on hunger strike for the second time since his incarceration in May 2020, his sister and his lawyer said on Monday.
Briere, who was sentenced to eight years in jail for espionage, is one of seven French and more than two dozen foreign nationals who campaigners say Iran has jailed in a strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the West.
Held in the prison of Vakilabad in the eastern city of Mashhad, he had already gone on hunger strike once before, at the end of December 2021. “It´s the only weapon he has,” his sister Blandine Briere said in a statement.
He stopped eating on January 28, she said. Philippe Valent, Briere´s France-based lawyer, called the espionage charges against him “fiction” and his trial “a parody staged by the Revolutionary Guards”, the branch of the Iranian security forces entrusted with the preservation of the regime.
Harvey Weinstein. — AFP FileNEW YORK: Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sexual assault and rape was...
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan on Sept. 13, 2016. — Slate website WASHINGTON: U.S. Supreme Court justices, wading back...
A representational image of inmates behind jail bars. — Unsplash/FileMOSCOW: A Russian court on Wednesday ordered...
Sudanese soldiers guard the surrounding area of the UNMIS compound in El-Fasher, the administrative capital of North...
US quietly shipped ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. — Report news agencyWASHINGTON: The United States in recent weeks...
US President Joe Biden during his address in California. — AFP FileWASHINGTON: President Joe Biden signed a...