according to her family.
Ms Amiri had previously described the details of her detention and interrogation in an open letter to the
new head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi.
She wrote that Iranian intelligence forces had asked her to spy for them at the British Council.
Her cousin, Mohsen Omrani, told The Independent that the reason for her imprisonment was that she had
refused to become an informant.
"Aras was a simple employee at the British Council and her role was to arrange Iranian cultural events in the
UK, all organised by the permission of the Iranian Ministry of Culture," he said. “The Iranian government
has disagreements with the British Council activities and has taken Aras as a hostage on bogus charges.”
Sir Ciaran Devane, chief executive of the British Council, has expressed “deep disappointment and dismay”
that Ms Amiri’s appeal was rejected by the Iranian authorities.
In a statement he said: “We remain extremely concerned for Aras’ safety and wellbeing and continue to
refute the accusation levied against her.”
Ms Amiri is one of several UK-based prisoners being held in Iran on charges of espionage and endangering
national security. Another high profile case is of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian citizen, whose
case has overshadowed UK-Iran relations for the past two years.
Tara Sepehri Far, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The Independent that Ms Amiri’s
sentence was another example of how Iranian authorities have tried to criminalise what appear to be
legitimate contacts with foreign cultural and educational institutions.
She said that “for the past five years, criminalisation of dual nationals who were connected to policy or
cultural institutions was led by the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) intelligence, but in the case
of Aras, it is the Ministry of Intelligence that is prosecuting her on unfounded allegations of leading the
cultural ‘infiltration’, a vague term that is not even defined under Iranian law.”
The Iranian judiciary is an unelected body whose chief is appointed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, and oversees all courts and judges across the country.