“At no time did they detain me in the framework of any protest,” he assured. the young woman from A Coruña Ana Baneirawho has revealed that she ended up in prison during her “backpacking” trip in Iran, at a service station and when she was driving by car to the city of Persepolis.

“We were refueling at the gas station and suddenly the police got into the car. They arrested me, they put me in another car and there we went directly to an interrogation room”, Baneira told EFE, who told that the arrest took place on October 12, when he had been traveling “approximately” for a month That country.

“I entered on September 6, there was no type of protest nor did I see it coming”, he assures in another interview, with Europa Press. He did it after previously visiting Turkey, Georgia and Armenia and without it being initially scheduled. “At the beginning of my trip, the goal was not to go to Iran but to the capital of Azerbaijan, but the land border was closed and I decided to go down to Iran,” a country whose hospitality stands out for its people and to which he acknowledges that he would return. “If they promise me they won’t stop me.”

Baneira was detained by the Iranian government on charges of participating in the protests for the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini and after 138 days in prison she was released last Saturday. “You force yourself to think that they are going to release you, but you don’t know when,” she says after she went through two prisons.

On Monday he finally arrived home, in A Coruña, on a flight from Geneva. “My reason for entering Iran was basically to continue my backpacking trip,” remarked the young woman, who He wanted to clarify that he is not an activist “in any way”. She acknowledges that, indeed, she is linked to climate change and social issues, but that she finds it “disrespectful” to be called an activist, since there are activists “really doing a great job.”