Benjamin Brière returned to France on May 12, 2023, after more than three years of detention in Iran. The French tourist was traveling alone in his van at the time of his arrest in May 2020.
Iran accused him of taking "photographs of prohibited areas" with a recreational drone in a natural park and sentenced him to eight years in prison for espionage. "I can't sleep in the dark. I have to sleep with the light. I need a nightlight, like a child," he says sadly. He remains locked up 21 hours a day, exposed to continuous light. Some weeks, his jailers confine him to a tiny cell. "You freak out at any noise, you're still scared, you look behind your shoulder,' he adds, his face marked. During his detention, the Frenchman began two hunger strikes in 2021 and February 2023.