A French tourist is facing a possible prison sentence in Iran for flying a drone in a restricted area.
The tourist was arrested and detained in the country 10 months ago. According to his lawyer, he has now been charged with "spying and propaganda against the system."
Benjamin Briere, a 35-year-old French national was arrested near the Iran-Turkmenistan border last year. He reportedly flew his drone and took pictures of areas designated by the Iranian government as off-limits to the public.
Brier's lawyer, Saeid Dehghan, said his client could be facing a multiyear prison sentence if he is found guilty. Dehghan said Briere is currently being detailed at a prison facility in the city of Mashhad and is in good health.
Dehghan said that Briere is facing spying charges for the pictures he took with his drone. The "propaganda against the system" charge was for a social media post he made criticizing the country's mandatory use of a hijab for all women.
"My colleagues and I believe that these charges are false and baseless, but we have to wait for the judge to conduct a full investigation in the next few days and announce his verdict," Dehghan said.
France's foreign ministry only confirmed Briere's arrest last month. The ministry has not yet officially commented on the arrest nor has it committed to negotiating for his release. The ministry said that it is closely monitoring the situation.
The charges brought against Briere come just days after a British national had also appeared in court in Iran to face propaganda charges. British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained inside an Iranian prison for the last five years.
France is currently part of a group of countries - including China, Russia, the UK, and the U.S. - that has been pressuring Iran to reinstate a nuclear deal made in 2015. In 2018, former President Donald Trump abandoned the deal and reinstated sanctions against Iran.
Iran has repeatedly denied that its nuclear program is being used to create weapons. However, the group of countries has remained suspicious of the country's intentions for breaking the terms of the nuclear deal.
