British-Iranian Prisoner Denied Phone Calls

The daughter of Anoosheh Ashoori, a dual Iranian-British prisoner serving a 10-year sentence at Evin Prison, told IranWire that she has become increasingly worried about her father, and says she has never heard him so depressed and upset throughout the three and a half years of his incarceration.

Elika Ashoori said Evin prison officials had recently denied Anoosheh Ashoori telephone privileges, and had confiscated his phone card without providing any reason. Ashoori has marked his 67th birthday in prison, and has now been denied his right to contact anyone for six weeks.

“Starting a month and a half ago, my father's cellmates have lent their phone cards to my father for a few minutes so he can call us,” Elika Ashoori told IranWire. She was speaking from the United Kingdom, where she and her family — including her father prior to his detention — live. She said some of her father’s cellmates had also made short calls to them to inform them about her father's health. “Prison officials have not even given any explanation for their actions. We told the British Foreign Office officials about this but they constantly tell us they are lobbying for my father's right to make phone calls. But nothing has happened yet."

In Evin Prison, prisoners are normally entitled to make calls to five pre-registered numbers each day if they purchase a phone card from prison officers.

Anoosheh Ashoori’s daughter Elika explained that the majority of the family live outside of Iran. ‌ "My grandmother, who is 90 years old, lives in Tehran. She cannot visit my father. My father, denied visitors, is now even deprived of the right to talk to his wife and children."

On April 5, Sky News broadcast a recorded message from Ashoori. "It is now more than three and a half years that all we have received from the British government has just been words and no tangible results," he said in a recorded messaged from Evin Prison.

Ashoori, a retired engineer, was arrested by security agents in 2017 during a visit to his mother. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined by a Revolutionary Court for spying for Israel. He is being held in Ward 4 at Evin Prison, which accommodates most of those dual nationals held on charges such as "espionage for hostile states."

"My father has reached a point where he had to send that voice message and ask for help himself," Elika Ashoori told IranWire. "We cannot ask the Iranian authorities about this because they imprison their people so easily for no reason. We cannot speak logically with these people. We just pray every day and night that the British government will repay the money owed to Iran so that the dual national prisoners who are now in Evin Prison can be released and return to their homes. Paying this money can be done through the provision of the coronavirus vaccine for the Iranian people or some other way. In any case, we are in a situation where we feel as a family we are not very important to the British government so that it will do something for us."

Elika Ashoori refers to the historical debt the UK owes Iran for the purchase of Chieftain tanks in 1970, during the reign of Iran’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

For the last several years, the Iranian government has used this debt and dual nationals it has held hostage a bargaining chips. As part of discussions to release Nazanin Zaghari, a British-Iranian dual national who is also being held hostage, Iranian officials announced that her freedom would follow the payment of the £400m the British government owes Iran.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is currently under house arrest, despite completing a five-year sentence. She awaits a verdict on a new case that was opened as the end of her sentence approached.

Aras Amiri, another British-Iranian dual national, is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Evin Prison on charges of espionage.

Siamak Namazi and Morad Tahabaz, dual national Iranian-American prisoners, Austrian-Iranian nationals Kamran Ghaderi and Massoud Mosaheb, and Iranian-Swedish physician Ahmad Reza Jalali are all also charged with spying for hostile states and are also serving time  in Evin Prison.

Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, so in the case of dual national prisoners, does not attach much importance to attempts at diplomacy by officials from countries that claim their citizens have been held unfairly. However, a number of dual-national prisoners have been exchanged for Iranian prisoners in other countries in recent years, and some of them have been exchanged for money.

Psychological Abuse

"My father was told that if his family arrived in Iran, they would also arrest them for spying, like him,” Elika Ashoori told IranWire in a previous interview on August 22, 2020. "He told us the same thing over the phone and that was why he was transferred to solitary confinement for two weeks — to be punished.”

In addition to trumped-up charges against him and cruel denial of his rights, Anoosheh Ashoori's interrogators also used other means of tormenting him. "My father was told during the early interrogations, when he was not allowed to contact his family, that his wife had abandoned him. They said, ‘our agents went to your daughter's pastry shop and talked to her, and now we know what sweets your daughter likes. But if they go there again, they will not be so kind.’ My father once went on a hunger strike to protest against the pressure put on him to make a forced confession. He was threatened with being sent to the Somalian prisoners' cell if he continued. It was rumored that Shia prisoners would not last more than one or two nights if they were transferred to a Sunni Somalian prisoners' cell.”

“It’s like a broken record,” says Elika Ashoori eight months on from that conversation. “They [the UK government] have the same promises. It is as if someone were reading from a prepared text. Every time we ask we get the same answers. Every time they say they are trying to talk and consult with the Iranian Foreign Ministry. But we are unaware of what conversations take place. I just know my father is very disappointed."

Ashoori has also been denied appropriate medical care.

"My father had a knee problem and it was supposed to be operated on, but he was arrested in Iran two months before the surgery,” his daughter says. “He has repeatedly asked to see a specialist doctor outside the prison, but they will not agree. He also has gum and tooth problems, but the dentist in prison only pulls teeth!"

She says she knows her father is not the only one. Like other prisoners, he has to endure the poor conditions at Evin: neglected health problems, increased number of prisoners in each ward, bedbugs, and, over the last year, coronavirus.

Throughout his time in prison, Ashoori has endured abuse, threats, and medical negligence with a calm resilience. As has happened with other prisoners, Ashoori has also been pressured to spy for Iran. ”They told my father to cooperate with them and spy on the British government for them. My father told us he would rather stay in prison than spy for another government.”

Now his family’s worries are mounting, exacerbated by his feelings of despair.

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