A hundred people demanded this Sunday in Madrid, in front of the Iranian embassy, the release of the Spanish Santiago Cogedor, detained by the Iranian authorities for having photographed the tomb of Mahsa Amini, whose death sparked protests throughout the country.
The silent protest was led by relatives of Santiago Cogedor, 41, arrested along with the translator who accompanied him on October 2, in Iran.
At the beginning of the silent protest, which lasted about an hour, Santiago Cogedor’s mother read “a manifesto” that she said she had already delivered to the Iranian ambassador in Spain, Hassan Ghashghavi, and to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whom she thanked the effort of the diplomats to free the son and the accompaniment they have given him in prison.
Célia Cogedor assured that the Iranian ambassador received her personally last Thursday and was “extremely understanding”, for which she asked all those who joined the protest in Madrid today to be “prudent and polite” and remain silent.
By photographing the tomb of Mahsa Amini, the Spanish Santiago Cogedor did not intend to “attack the security of the State of Iran” and if something “offended” the Iranians and their leaders with this conduct, the family “apologizes”, since “for sure” that he himself already did it, wrote the relatives of the detainee in the text of the manifesto read by Celia Cogedor.
The same text recalls that Santiago Cogedor had already been in Iran in 2019 and had always expressed “very positive opinions” about the country, specifically about its landscapes, its culture and the hospitality and kindness of the Iranians, as confirmed by the publications he made in his moment. on the social network Instagram.
Santiago Cogedor, considered “an adventurer” by the Spanish media, is also an environmental activist who crossed Iran on a bicycle in 2019, in one of the stages of a multi-month trip between Spain and Saudi Arabia.
This time, he arrived in Iran at the beginning of October and had been making a trip between Madrid and Doha, in Qatar, since January, with the ultimate goal of watching Spain’s matches in the World Cup.
Along the way, Santiago Cogedor participated in initiatives with schools, hospitals and other institutions and entities, in different countries, related to raising awareness about climate change and environmental protection.
Today’s protest in Madrid has been joined by people with photographs of Ana Baneira, a 24-year-old Spaniard detained in Iran since at least November 10 for having participated in one of the demonstrations in defense of women’s rights that took place repeated in the country since the death of Mahsa Amini.
Santiago Cogedor and Ana Baneira are two of the 40 foreigners that the Iranian authorities admitted, on November 22, imprisoned in Iran for their alleged participation in the protests.
Tehran argues that the demonstrations are being instigated and organized by foreign countries.
The protest in Madrid was silent and the relatives of Santiago Cogedor opted for prudence in their words, hoping that the Spaniard will be released soon, as a result of Spain’s diplomatic work with the Iranian authorities.
The least prudent was Nilufar Saberi, an Iranian living in Spain who said she was an “independent human rights activist.”
Nilufar Saberi called for the immediate release of Santiago Cogedor and Ana Baneira and added that “another 20,000 young people” are “in the same situation” as the two Spaniards in Iran, detained for “absolutely unfair reasons.”
“Iranians only take to the streets to demonstrate peacefully, like we are doing here, and they get arrested,” he said.
Iran has been rocked by protests since the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, who died after being detained by the so-called morality police, responsible for enforcing the strict dress code for women. .
Since then, the protests have become one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocratic regime, installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In some three months of protests, which have been heavily repressed by the Iranian authorities, more than 500 people have been killed and at least 15,000 have been detained, according to the non-governmental organization (NGO) Iran Human Rights.
Source: TSF
