Son of British couple sentenced to 10 years in Iranian prison does not know if he will be able to speak with them again
The son of a British couple detained in Tehran says the news that they were sentenced to 10 years in prison was “devastating” and came out of the blue.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, from East Sussex, spent more than 13 months behind bars in Iran, denied legal representation and subjected to harsh conditions, their families say.
But Mrs. Foreman’s son, Joe Bennett, said: Independent He said Thursday that the severity of the sentence, handed down nearly four months after they were tried on controversial espionage charges, was “a thunderous punch in the gut.”
“It’s as if the diagnosis was given to us by the doctor,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to have to listen to when you’re diagnosed with cancer… but it also means you can work to fight it, recover from it, and work to heal.”
“We had no idea what was going on for the last 14 months… Now it’s like they’ve been given 10 years. So it hit me like a bolt of lightning in the stomach. I felt sick. Then you start to say ‘now we know what we’re dealing with, we can start putting together a proper plan.'”
Mr Bennett said there was new hope that the UK Foreign Office, which had been waiting for a clear decision for months, could take action to secure their release. He said the sentence would at least allow them to work on a plan.
Ms Foreman’s son is unsure if he can contact his family at this time as he had not heard from them as of Thursday.
He was also unclear about whether his parents would continue to be held in Tehran’s Evin prison, as he had previously said. Independent It was used to detain protesters en masse during the regime’s crackdown.
Mr. Foreman is currently being held in the political wing of the prison, while Ms. Foreman is in the women’s wing.
“Even though they are both in an absolutely terrible situation, Craig has people he can talk to and chat with in English,” Mr Bennett said.
“My mother is not like that. She is with Iranians who speak Farsi and very little broken English.
“So even though it’s overpopulated and overcrowded, it’s extremely alienating. It must be a very strange thing to have to live with when you’re surrounded by people and yet you feel so alone. And that’s something we need to find.”
The Foremans recently sent a letter to authorities expressing their complaints about their treatment. Ms Foreman told the BBC in a phone call from prison ahead of the verdict that it was “a desperate attempt to bring justice to this situation”.
“We have very few tools at our disposal, we have no voice, all we can do is write letters and go on hunger strike. We must use our right to be heard by the legal systems to say that what you are doing is unjust and unjust, and we are willing to suffer ourselves for it to be understood,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
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Mr Bennett said his parents were forced to sleep on concrete floors or in metal bunk beds without mattresses and lived in overcrowded, unsanitary and vermin-infested conditions.
Campaigners said they were locked out of their homes for 213 days and were subjected to 57 days of solitary confinement and interrogation.
Mr Bennett saidIndependent He said he was encouraged by the government’s comments since the sentencing and hoped he could get some answers from ongoing meetings and calls by the end of next week.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Thursday that the sentence was “completely appalling and completely unfair” and vowed to continue fighting for their release.
“We will pursue this case uninterruptedly with the Iranian government until we see Craig and Lindsay Foreman safely returned to the UK and reunited with their families,” Ms Cooper said in a statement.
The foremen were arrested on January 3 last year while traveling in Iran on a global motorcycle journey. Iranian state media announced the following month that the men had been detained on espionage charges, but they denied this.
Mr Bennett’s campaigned They have been released for months, mounting concerns for their welfare and a lack of transparency in the judicial process. A. petition passed 60,000 signatures calling for their release.
