Frenchman jailed in Iran halts hunger strike: family

Benjamin Briere, who is being held at the Vakilabad jail in the eastern city of Mashhad, was arrested in May 2020, after taking pictures in a national park with a recreational drone. (AFP)

• Benjamin Briere, 36, was sentenced by an Iranian court last week to eight years in jail
• The French foreign ministry has described the verdict as ‘unacceptable’, saying Briere was a ‘tourist’

PARIS: A Frenchman convicted in Iran on spying charges he denies has ended a hunger strike in prison after refusing food for more than a month, his family said Tuesday.
Benjamin Briere, 36, was sentenced by an Iranian court last week to eight years in jail.
He had begun the hunger strike at Christmas to protest the conditions of his detainment and the lack of any progress in his legal proceedings after he was arrested in 2020.
“He has stopped his hunger strike, I asked him to, given how it was developing. And he knows he needs strength to continue his struggle,” his sister Blandine told AFP.
Briere, who is being held at the Vakilabad jail in the eastern city of Mashhad, was arrested in May 2020, after taking pictures in a national park with a recreational drone.
The French foreign ministry has described the verdict as “unacceptable,” saying Briere was a “tourist.”
Briere’s Iranian lawyer Saeid Dehghan wrote on Twitter that his hunger strike had lasted 35 days and that he had lost 13 kilos.
He is one of more than a dozen Western citizens held in Iran described as hostages by activists, who say they are innocent of any crime and detained by the powerful Revolutionary Guards to extract concessions from the West.
The verdict against Briere came as Iran and world powers are seeking to reach an agreement at talks in Vienna on reviving a 2015 deal to curb the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
Blandine Briere said her brother was keeping up hope after his situation — along with that of French academic Fariba Adelkhah, who is also detained in Iran — was raised by President Emmanuel Macron in telephone talks with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday.
Macron urged the “immediate release” of both French citizens, the French presidency said.
“It gives (us) hope, but we will continue to fight until he is on a plane for France,” Blandine Briere said.