British couple held in notorious Iran prison ‘living off rice and gristle in kitchen filled with rats’
A British couple held in Iran on espionage charges are subsisting on rice and gristle in a dirty cell as they prepare to spend Christmas in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, their family said.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, from East Sussex, were arrested during a world-wide motorbike tour in January and later charged with espionage, which they denied.
Ms. Foreman’s son, Joe Bennett, said his mother “suffered a lot with her skin and her weight” due to lack of ventilation and poor conditions in the prison for nearly a year.
“Extremely dirty,” he said. Sky News. “She’s cooking, and the kitchen is full of mice. It’s very bad for both of them, to be honest.
“They lost a lot of weight because there wasn’t enough food. They eat rice and grits every day. They can’t really exercise. It’s overcrowded and cramped.”
He said he felt guilty when his mother was stuck in the cell while she and her family were preparing to celebrate Christmas.
Evin Detention House in Tehran was built to house hundreds of political prisoners before the Iranian Revolutions.
Currently home to some 15,000 people, the area remains notorious for squalid conditions and single cells without toilets or beds.
Rare accounts shared by BBC Last year, he said, prisoners were interrogated for up to 12 hours a day in some cases, threatened with beatings or execution, and herded into freezing, overcrowded cells.
The prison was also hit several times during Israeli attacks on the capital in June.
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Mr Bennett said the couple, both in their 50s, were being supported by the Foreign Office.
He spoke to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper but feels “disappointed” with the Government’s handling of the situation.
“It seems like they’re waiting for something. We’re in a bit of a stalemate at the moment; Iran is waiting for Britain to act, Britain is waiting for Iran to act, and my family and I are stuck in the middle.”
“There seems to be a policy of sitting back and letting this judicial process play out, which in my eyes is a complete circus.”
Mr Bennett has only been able to contact them by phone a few times since their arrest.
In November, they announced they had gone on hunger strike “with a call for help” after feeling “let down” by the UK government.
He said this week: “The last time they were in court, almost two months ago, we were told a sentence would be handed down in a few weeks. We’re now two months in and nothing has happened.”
“I keep saying that as a government we need to be more responsible and speak openly. They are accused of espionage, of spying on behalf of the British state, and yet the same UK Government does not come out and defend them and does not say that it completely denies the allegations.”
The Foreign Office is warning all British and Anglo-Iranian citizens not to travel to Iran due to the “significant risk of arrest, interrogation or detention”.
A spokesperson for the FCDO said in a statement in October: “We are deeply concerned by reports that Craig and Lindsay Foreman have been charged with espionage in Iran.
“We continue to discuss this issue directly with Iranian officials.
“FCDO provides them with consular assistance and remains in close contact with family members.”
