France – France Info, Oct. 21, 2025
Imprisoned for three years, Benjamin Brière reflects on the extremely harsh conditions of detention in Iranian prisons.
“I can’t even imagine what they’re going through,” said Benjamin Brière, a former hostage in Iran, on France Inter on Tuesday, October 21, speaking about the imprisonment of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris. Detained since 2022, the two French nationals were heavily sentenced by the Iranian regime on October 14 for espionage. “What they are enduring is completely inhuman,” he warned.
Arrested in Iran while traveling on May 28, 2020, Benjamin Brière was convicted of espionage, imprisoned in solitary confinement, and released on May 12, 2023. He described the extremely grueling conditions he faced—beaten by mullahs, locked up “24 hours a day in a cage […] without windows, with the lights on around the clock, sleeping on the floor.” “You can’t understand what’s happening,” Brière recalled.
“What they are living through is beyond words; their families don’t even know where they are right now.”
