More than four years after his release from an Iranian jail, Anoosheh Ashoori still wakes up with nightmares from the “dark, dark moments” he experienced there.
Mr Ashoori, 72, was speaking on a dreary wet day outside the UK Parliament. The former inmate of Tehran's most notorious prison was out on the street to call on the UK government to do more to release another detained British couple, Lindsay and Craig Foreman.
The British-Iranian survived more than five years in Evin Prison until the British government secured his release in a high-profile deal in 2022. “I still have my nightmares. I still have my moments of remembering all the hard times that I went through,” he told The National.
“I do dream about my former inmate and friends, in different scenarios – but horrible ones. Then I wake up in the middle of the night and I have to deal with that feeling until I can manage to go back to sleep again."
Mr Ashoori’s experience with Iran's hostage-taking and hopes that it can be stopped for good is what compelled him to campaign outside Parliament on Wednesday for the Foremans.
"I have lived in that hell. And I know that Lindsay and Craig are going through the same thing I did, even perhaps worse. So I felt that I must participate in this campaign."
The couple were arrested while on a motorcycle tour of Iran in January 2025, and have since been sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. Their family have repeatedly raised concerns about their health and welfare in prison.
Since their arrest, a war with the US and a popular uprising against the regime have rocked Iran – leading to greater paranoia and oppression from security officials.
Mr Ashoori fears the couple may be going through an incarceration that is worse than his own. “I have met a few of my former inmates who were released and it is far worse than what it was when I was there,” he said.
“Diseases have intensified, food quality has diminished. The tyranny itself has intensified. My condition there is nothing compared with what we are what is happening now."
Arbitrary detention
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said in Parliament on Wednesday that the Foremans' sentence was “appalling and unjustifiable”. “We will continue to pursue the case relentlessly until Lindsay and Craig are safely returned home to the UK and reunited with their family,” he said.
Tension between the UK and Iran is at an all-time high after a suspected terror attack at a British airbase used by US bombers this month. This followed attacks on Jewish businesses and Iranian dissidents in the UK, which police suspect were ordered by Iranian officials.
But the couple’s family are calling for stronger action from the UK government to secure their release.
Lindsay’s son Joe Bennett and other members of the family delivered a petition to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, signed by about 110,000 people, calling on the UK government to call the Foremans' imprisonment “arbitrary” and “unlawful”.
Richard Ratcliffe, husband of former Evin detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was released in the same deal as Mr Ashoori in 2022, also joined the family, alongside MPs and supporters.
Mr Ashoori's release in 2022 was secured by a payment of £400 million ($535 million) made by the UK government to Iran – which Tehran had claimed was debts owed over a historic arms deal.
“The options are limited because we don’t understand what Iran wants. They seem to be holding them as hostages pending any demands that they may have,” Tony Vaughan, the couple’s MP, told The National. “The government has to call a spade a spade and call it unlawful and arbitrary detention."
The family will be meeting Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband next week. “We’re very thankful that he’s given us his time. But we need to make sure this isn’t another sort of meet and greet,” Mr Bennett said.
“What we have to get next week is concrete answers as to [why] you’re not calling it arbitrary detention."
He hopes that a declaration of arbitrary detention by the UK government would enable diplomatic protection for the couple.
The family was also considering an application to the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
“From there, this is a bit further down the line, we'd be looking to apply for International Court of Justice. this all takes a lot of political will and the right person to get behind it,” Mr Bennett said.
Wider impact
UN experts have described the couple’s detention as a “state hostage-taking for political leverage”, citing “irregularities” in their trial last year.
Mr Ashoori warned that the detainees' families were also victims of trauma, just as his were.
"This is what I call shrapnel, because it is not only the victim who has been tyrannised, it is the family members who are hit. Shrapnel is exactly what hits the family members, and they go through the same trauma, but in a different way," he said.