Leaving Madrid on foot, Santiago Sanchez recounted the long journey that was to take him to Doha, Qatar, to attend the Football World Cup, posting short videos on his Instagram account, fragments of meetings and scenes of life in the countries he passed through. The last date of 1is october. On October 24, his parents announced the disappearance of the Spaniard, 41, an experienced hiker, shortly after he entered Iran from Iraqi territory.
In her last post, on her Instagram page, Italian Alessia Piperno, 30, said she was impressed by the courage of the Iranian people: “This land welcomed me with open arms, and it went straight to my heart. » After being unreachable for four days, this solo traveler informed her parents of her detention on October 2 in a brief phone call: “They arrested me, and I’m in Tehran prison. “There are people here who have been detained for months without any reason”she added, worried about suffering the same fate.
Santiago Sanchez and Alessia Piperno were in the country as Iran is rocked by a wave of protests sparked on September 16 by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, after her arrest by vice squad. However, Tehran has repeatedly accused “external forces” to stir up protests. As sanctions threats mount, would the Iranian regime step up its pressure on Western countries by kidnapping their nationals or people linked to Western chancelleries?
Five French nationals detained in Iran
The relatives of two Iranian citizens, employees of the French Embassy in Tehran, confirmed to the Monde their arrest at the end of September. The Iranian authorities did not communicate about them. On October 7, France invited its nationals passing through Iran to leave the country as soon as possible because of the risk of arrest and arbitrary detention. Five French nationals are currently being held in Iran, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Tuesday (October 11th). Until now, Paris officially recognized that four of its nationals were imprisoned there: the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security; Benjamin Brière, arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage, and two trade unionists, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, arrested in May.
You have 46.29% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.