Jose Carlos Rodriguez |
A Coruña (EFE).- After 138 days in an Iranian prison, last Saturday the Spanish Ana Baneira finally got her release. Accused of participating in the protests over the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, the young woman has recounted her experience behind bars for the first time: “The day in jail was sleeping a lot and playing with your imagination,” she told in an interview with EFE.
Baneira began her “backpacking” trip in early June. Her first stop was Istanbul and she spent two months traveling through Turkey. After crossing into Georgia, where she stayed for another month, she moved on to Armenia. From there she went to Iran, a destination that at first was not in her plans.
The young woman wanted to travel to Kyrgyzstan, via a ferry from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. However, as the country’s land border was closed, she finally decided to go to Iran, where she entered on September 6.
At that time, nothing made Baneira foresee what would happen next: “There was no type of protest and nothing was seen coming. My reason for entering Iran was basically to continue my backpacking trip,” he says.
In mid-September the country was shaken by various citizen protests after the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the police for wearing the veil incorrectly.
Stopped at a gas station
Baneira assures that he did not participate in any protest. However, on October 12, when she had already been traveling the country for a month and was heading with an Iranian friend to the city of Persepolis, the police detained her without giving any explanation.
“We were refueling at the gas station and suddenly the police got into the car. They stopped me, put me in another car and there we went directly to an interrogation room. They interrogated me for many hours and they told me that it was not enough and that they had to continue the next day”, explained the young woman.
Baneira says that one day before his arrest he went to the Immigration office in the city of Shiraz to “extend his visa” and stay longer in the country. During that process, she had to carry out a “small interview”, in which she was questioned about the “objectives” of her trip and the places she had already visited.
“I did not expect at all that something like this could happen. In fact, when we finished the interview they told me that in the next three days they were going to give me the visa extension for one month”, she affirms.
Baneira entered prison, accused of espionage, although she would not know the reasons for her arrest until several days later. She explains that the first month was “very hard” because of the uncertainty and the fear of being accused of something serious, as it finally happened.
His cell was “quite spacious”
She says that her cell, in the women’s unit, was “quite spacious” but that her companions “did not speak English” so she had no way of communicating.
“The mime in the jail worked quite well, and they taught me a few words in Farsi, basically swearing. Also good morning. We understood each other through gestures”, says Baneira with a smile.
Going out to the patio and activities such as cleaning or doing laundry helped her to be more relaxed, she confesses.
“The day to day was sleeping a lot and playing a lot with the imagination,” he explains, and also reveals that during the first two months he had no contact with anyone, not even his relatives.
“You force yourself to think that your relatives are fine and that they are going to release you, but you don’t know when. They were the two thoughts that I was constantly holding on to,” she adds.
After a month, she was transferred to Evin prison in Tehran. There she was able to speak to the Spanish embassy in Iran to inform them that she was fine.
After months in prison, Baneira was released last Saturday by a judge. She knows little about this process, but she thanks the embassy and the entire team of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iranian counterpart for her work.
“I know from a good hand that they have done everything they could to free me and I hope that they are also doing it for Santiago,” he says.
Your request for Santiago Sánchez Cogedor
He is referring to Santiago Sánchez Cogedor, the Spaniard who is still in an Iranian prison, in his case after being arrested on October 2 after visiting Amini’s tomb in Saqqez.
The young woman assures that she never had contact with Santiago or with any foreign person detained, but asks for their release.
There are still charges against Baneira, although he specifies that they are “minor” and that he prefers not to specify them.
“If they promise me that they won’t arrest me again, I would love to go back,” the girl responds bluntly about whether she would return to Iran, and clarifies that she refuses to take a bad memory from a place where she felt “very safe” before. of his arrest and which highlights “the hospitality of the people.”
His positive experience on Iran weighs more than the negative
For her, her positive experience, prior to her arrest, weighs more than the negative: “It would be very unfair to judge the entire country for the arrest,” she says.
On his arrival in Spain, last Monday, he underlines the happiness and emotion of the moment: “It was lucky that we could do it alone, that was very important to us.”
Now all are quiet days. Walks on the beach, drinking coffee and her mother’s “delicious” potato omelette, her first meal after landing.
Your next trip will be the Camino de Santiago. Then, “like every 25-year-old,” he says, he will have to “look for work.”
Baneira, which is closely linked to sustainability, would like to “continue on that path”. Of course, he assures that he is not an activist, as has been said of her: “It seems disrespectful to me that they call me an activist when there are real activists who are doing a great job,” he ditch.
