Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the conditions in which Kamal Foroughi is being held in Evin Prison, Iran.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

We have not been able to obtain access to Mr Foroughi since his detention in May 2011. The Iranian Government does not recognise dual nationality for Iranian citizens. Our requests for consular access to detainees have been rejected on these grounds. We regularly express our concerns about all of our consular cases at high level with the Iranian Government.

Prime Minister David Cameron raised these issues in a letter to President Rouhani on 19 October and again in a telephone call on 19 January. Most recently this was raised by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) during Foreign Minister Zarif’s visit to London on 5 February. I am also keeping a close interest in Mr Foroughi’s case, having recently met with his son in London on 1 December and 14 January.