Prisoners in Iran 'disappearing', British inmate claims
Prisoners with suspected coronavirus in Iran are “disappearing” due to illness or being given sleeping pills and sent back to crowded cells where the virus can easily spread, a British-Iranian father who is jailed on spying charges has claimed.
Retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, 66, secretly recorded an audio diary detailing the chaotic conditions in Evin prison, Tehran, where he is serving a 10-year sentence for “spying for Israel”, which he strongly denies.
Several inmates have fallen ill due to suspected coronavirus, Mr Ashoori claims, adding that once a sick prisoner goes to the prison’s medical centre, “he does not return… nobody knows any more about his fate.”
Another prisoner complained of Covid-19 symptoms but was not tested, he added. Instead, he was given sleeping pills and told by a prison doctor to “go back and rest” in a cell shared with 11 other men.
Iran has been the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East and has recorded more than 95,000 cases and 6,000 related deaths, although the official figures are heavily disputed.
As a precaution in March, the Islamic Republic temporarily released thousands of prisoners from its over-crowded jails, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been allowed to stay with her parents in Tehran while being monitored by an ankle tag.
But other dual nationals accused of espionage, including Mr Ashoori and the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, have remained behind bars in Evin, while other inmates are now returning following their temporary release.
“It is just enough for one contaminated person to arrive and the rest will soon contract the virus,” Mr Ashoori said in the diary, recorded last month [April] during phone calls to his wife, Sherry Izadi.
Ms Izadi, from South London, today [Friday] criticised the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for a lack of action to release her husband, saying he had become “forgotten” since being arrested in August 2017 while visiting his family in Iran.
“Every time I hear Dominic Raab talk about returning Britons who have been trapped on holiday by coronavirus, I wonder why he is not giving the same priority to those, like my husband, who are held unlawfully in a foreign prison”, she said. “Other countries are doing deals to free their citizens, but the government that is showing the least action has to be the British. It’s as if they have forgotten my husband exists.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We strongly urge Iran to reunite British-Iranian dual national Mr Ashoori with his family. Our Embassy in Tehran continues to request consular access and we have been supporting his family since being made aware of his detention. The treatment of all dual nationals detained in Iran is a priority and both the PM and Foreign Secretary have recently raised this issue with their Iranian counterparts.”
