French tourist faces spy charges in Iran

[MA2 317]

This happened some months ago, has anyone heard of any change to his circumstances?
Regards

Two days ago...

France rejects Iranian spy charges for tourist Benjamin Briere

Benjamin Brière was detained in Iran in 2020 after flying a drone near the Iran-Turkmenistan border.

www.bbc.com

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[Gagey52]

Thanks for the update MA2 317. I think that boy is there for the long haul.

 

[Maviac]

Going to Iran is about as stupid as jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

The guy is dealing with the clear and understandable repercussions of his intentionally illegal behavior in an area universally known for having no sense of humor about such things. How on earth is it "troubling" to point that out? It might be different if he was ill informed or did it by accident, but this was premeditated stupidity on his part. Hard to be sympathetic about that.

I get that. He will deal with the repercussions Of doing something dumb (assuming he actually did, who knows). I just don’t think the response should be “yeah, idiot got what he deserved“ (nobody said that, yes, I‘m exaggerating) vs. having some sympathy for a human in a bad situation.

And yes, I’m as guilty as anybody of taking the former position. Obviously, you have to abide by the laws of wherever you are. But I also don’t take an autocratic regime’s version of the accusation at face value.

One of my best friends is a Iranian emigre. He assures me that everyone hates the government and within our lifetime we’ll all be visiting Iran as tourists. I hope he’s right. His family left when the Shah was kicked out 40+ years ago.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

This happened some months ago, has anyone heard of any change to his circumstances?
Regards

Indeed, he was due to go before a judge within days of March 15th, and couldn't find any reports after this date.
Not a good sign, they might drag this our as such regimes often tend to do.

As for this Frenchmans predicament, I can't see any updates on news services since March 15th, a day before this post was made.
Looks like it will be at the Iranian GOVCOs pleasure at to when this might be settled, rather than "we have to wait for the judge to conduct a full investigation in the next few days and announce his verdict" back on the March 15th reports.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Two days ago...

France rejects Iranian spy charges for tourist Benjamin Briere

Benjamin Brière was detained in Iran in 2020 after flying a drone near the Iran-Turkmenistan border.

www.bbc.com

.

Whoops, missed page 2 of the thread !

Reading that it shows how much Iran can treat such people as a political hostage, let's hope this doesn't lead to a long jail term or worse !
Good to see France backing it's citizen, hopefully other countries have expressed their support against baseless charges for political motives.

He was silly for sure, but this is over the top trumped up garbage by Iran (unless they CAN prove he was a spy, highly unlikely).