The British Embassy in Tehran has been in contact with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the arrest of British dual nationals Craig and Lindsay Foreman, according to Lord Collins of Highbury, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
The Foremans were detained in Iran in January and charged with spying while reportedly on a motorcycling trip around the world. No information about the Foremans’ case has been made public since their family first alerted the media on Feb. 17 to their arrests.
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The contacts between the two countries were announced during a Feb. 27 debate in the House of Lords about British citizens in Iran, which was organized by the Iranian-born Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr. Guli Francis-Dehqani.
Francis-Dehqani appeared to suggest during the debate that the couple would also face court trials in Iran.
“I understand that the Minister [Lord Collins] will not be able to comment in detail, but can he reassure the House that His Majesty’s Government will do everything they can to make sure that they are represented at the Foremans’ forthcoming trial?” Francis-Dehqani said. “It is a right of any government under international law, but one which Iran has been known to deny.”
“I reassure the Right Reverend Prelate that the British embassy in Tehran is in contact with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the recent case and we will continue to raise this directly with the Iranian authorities,” Lord Collins replied. “A specialist team from the FCDO is in frequent contact with the family, providing regular updates and advice. This case will continue to be a priority for the government.”
Iran’s regime has been accused in recent years by international human rights groups of arbitrarily detaining dual and foreign nationals to use the prisoners as leverage in negotiations about money and Iranian prisoners detained abroad. Research by rights groups and testimonies from former prisoners have also raised serious concerns about the use of physical and psychological torture to extract confessions.
Some British lawmakers have also referred to detained dual nationals and foreigners as hostages, in cases where their imprisonment appeared to be linked to diplomatic discussions. However, the British government has repeatedly refused to use this term when discussing British nationals detained abroad.
“I respectfully ask the Minister if he is willing to acknowledge the reality that these detainees are, to all intents and purposes, hostages,” Francis-Dehqani said. ”Let us call this situation out for what it is; other countries such as France are willing to do so. I cannot help thinking that the more that European and other countries speak, as well as act, with one voice, the greater the pressure on Iran to change its approach.”
“I do not want to be drawn into using language that might be considered to refer to specific cases,” Lord Collins said.
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Francis-Dehqani, an Iranian-born British Anglican bishop, was forced to leave Iran during the 1979 revolution following an assassination attempt on her father, who was a bishop in Iran, and her mother, who was injured in the attack. Her 24-year-old brother, Bahram, was murdered in 1980.
The government of Iran considers Christians who have converted from Islam to be apostates, a form of religious abandonment which is a criminal offense under Iran’s law. Punishments for this offense can be severe, with judges able to impose long prison sentences, corporal punishment and the death penalty.
“The regime has been encouraged from 1979 to engage in hostage taking. If you look at the history of hostage taking you can see that every time they have benefited from it, so they have become more eager to follow hostage diplomacy, because it pays off,” the released British-Iranian prisoner Anoosheh Ashoori told Kayhan Life. “There are British dual nationals currently in Evin prison. I am aware of three or four, including Alireza Akbari who was executed in 2023. I was living with them in the same hall so I knew them all personally.”
Ashoori was arrested in 2017 in Iran and charged in 2019 with spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and for “acquiring illegitimate wealth,” and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was released from Evin prison with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was also charged with spying, in March 2022. Ashoori was interrogated for 116 days and made to sign a false confession while in detention. Ashoori and Zaghari-Ratcliffe have always denied the charges.
Their release was eventually negotiated as part of an agreement between the UK and Iran which included the settlement of a 400 million pound ($557 million) debt accrued for tanks ordered by the Shah of Iran shortly before the revolution but never delivered.
Ashoori told Kayhan Life that the Foremans’ detentions could be connected to several outstanding matters, including an interest payment owed to Iran resulting from the delayed payment of the debt. The accruing interest attached to the debt, which is part of a lawsuit moving through the UK courts, still has not been settled.
“That interest was not within that money in exchange for hostages,” Ashoori told Kayhan Life. “I am not even sure whether the 400 million pounds was paid, because it went through a mediator, which was Oman, so, whether that money was passed on to the Iranian banks or not, we are not sure.”
“The Foremans’ detention may therefore be linked to money, or a prisoner exchange,” Ashoori said. “There are so many people who try to circumvent the sanctions, who are perhaps arrested in Britain, and these are all the things that go on behind the curtains. So maybe the Iranian government wants those people back.”
“The Foremans may now be under pressure to make false confessions, but looking on the bright side their cases were publicized early, whereas mine was publicized after two years. Within those two years I went through a lot of hard times, and that was because of the UK Foreign Ministry’s advice not to go public,” Ashoori said. “The Iranians then realized, ‘if we have got this chip and we cannot cash it, what’s the point of having Anoosheh in Evin prison?’ So they decided to publicize my name. The good thing is that because their cases have been publicized, there is that little bit of pressure, perhaps, from the British government, because they have been made aware.”
While the exact number of detainees is not known, research has found that at least 66 foreign and dual nationals have been detained by Iranian authorities since 2010, 16 of which were reported to have either British or dual British nationality, according to a Feb. 24 briefing paper produced by the UK House of Lords library.
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Detainees often choose not to publicize their cases for fear of government reprisals against family members living in Iran.
“Some may have loved ones still in Iran and the Iranian regime doesn’t have any red line, so they can easily arrest and torture their relatives,” Ashoori said. “ If you are frightened, then you might pull back, you don’t want that publicity, you don’t want that threat. In my case, I broke that red line for myself as soon as my name was publicized. So I tried to fight.”
