The Spaniard Santiago Sánchez, imprisoned in Iran after being detained while visiting the grave of Mahsa Amini, has told his family and friends that he intends to begin a hunger strike in the prison where he has remained since his arrest—almost a year ago. year—without the judicial charges against him having been made public. His entourage reports that they feel “forgotten” by the Spanish authorities, while the imprisoned adventurer’s condition “is getting worse and worse.”
Miguel Bergado, Sánchez’s friend, explains to La Vanguardia that they used to speak with Sánchez once a week, but the frequency has changed lately. “Now we communicate every day; We noticed Santiago very, very, tired. Time passes and we see no progress so that he can return home,” he laments in a telephone conversation. In one of those last calls, Sánchez told them that he would begin a hunger strike in the Iranian prison.
The Spanish adventurer left Madrid last year with the aim of reaching Qatar, where the World Cup was held. His intention was to travel more than 6,000 kilometers in solidarity, but he did not reach his destination. After crossing the border with Iran, which was the last country to cross, he detoured more than 300 kilometers to go to the grave of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old girl who died in police custody after being arrested for wearing her veil incorrectly. .
At that time the country was embroiled in protests against the ayatollahs over Amini’s death. Sánchez’s relatives did not find out that he had been arrested until three weeks later.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to diplomatic sources, has been carrying out very discreet efforts for months to get Sánchez to return to Spain. The progress, as the same sources assure, is communicated promptly to the prisoner’s family. The contacts have been of a high level. The head of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has spoken in recent months with his Iranian counterpart to obtain Sánchez’s release. The highest representative of Spanish diplomacy awaits the next gesture from Iran.
However, the prisoner’s friends say they are “fed up” with waiting. They see how the weeks go by and that supposedly expected gesture from Iran does not arrive. For this reason, they do not take a dim view of Sánchez starting his hunger strike, despite the fact that they are “concerned” about how the matter may be, which adds to the worsening of his state of health.
