Section:GDN 1N PaGe:15 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 18:41 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019 The Guardian •
National^15
Matthew Weaver
The family of a UK resident detained in
Iran on spying charges have urged the
UK government to do more to secure
her released after a 10-year prison sen-
tence was upheld without a hearing.
Aras Amiri , 33, a British Council
employee, was jailed in May , almost a
year after she was arrested while visit-
ing her ailing grandmother in Tehran.
A news site in Iran reported on Mon-
day that an appeal had been rejected.
Her cousin Dr Mohsen Omrani, a
medical researcher in Canada, said the
family was calling on the UK govern-
ment to intervene. “The whole family
thinks the British should do more,” he
said. “My aunt [ Amiri’s mother] mes-
saged me on Sunday to say the family
had received the decision. It was made
without her presence, or her attorney’s
presence, in the appeal court. They
just ratifi ed the fi rst ruling.”
He said that her immediate family
in Iran and her fi ance in London were
trying to secure her release. “They are
trying to keep their spirits up, and they
trying to meet diff erent offi cials and
members of parliament to try to secure
her release or reduce her sentence. ”
Omrani said the family feared Amiri
was being used as bargaining chip at a
time of tension between Iran and the
UK and US. She is being held in Evin
prison with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff e,
the Iranian-British citizen serving a
fi ve-year sentence for alleged spying.
Amiri’s detention was part of a num-
ber of arrests involving British dual
nationals or Iranians linked with Brit-
ish institutions. She worked for fi ve
years as an artistic aff airs offi cer for
the British Council, organising artistic
exchanges between Britain and Iran.
Omrani said: “The only reason she is
in prison is because she is an employee
of the British Council. It is the respon-
sibility of the British government to
make sure that she is returned safely
to the UK. She is not a UK citizen, so
I can see how the British government
might think that it is not their prob-
lem, but she was essentially in serviceFamily urges UK to step in
after Iran rejects British
Council worker’s appeal
▼ Aras Amiri, a UK resident, was
sentenced to 10 years in jail in Iran on
spying charges, which she denies
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FAMILY
for the British government and that’s
why this happened.” He added: “We all
think that the main blame goes to the
Iranian government. But we think the
British government should intervene
more forcefully to get her released.”
He said the family was aware of
“behind-the-curtain activities” but
that “whatever it was it is yet not work-
ing ”. He criticised the British Council
for insisting staff use pseudonyms,
saying that even though Amiri was
not visiting Iran for work, her pseu-
donym was cited in the indictment.
Sir Ciarán Devane, the chief execu-
tive of the c ouncil, expressed dismay
at the failed appeal , adding: “We
remain extremely concerned for Aras’s
safety and wellbeing and continue to
refute the accusation ... against her.”
In an appeal letter , Amiri said she
had refused to spy for Iran’s intelli-
gence service before sentenc ing. The
letter, published by the US-based
Cent er for Human Rights in Iran, said:
“I turned down their explicit invita-
tion for cooperation and told them I
could only work in my specifi c fi eld .”
Omrani said: “The Iranian regime ...
wanted her to be an informant inside
the British Council, and when she
refused they escalated her charges.”
A Foreign Offi ce spokesman said:
“Sentencing a woman to 10 years in
prison for seeking to build cultural
ties and aid understanding between
the peoples of the UK and Iran is
unjustifi able.”RELEASED BY "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws