Following the pledge he made on BBC World Tonight in August, today Oliver Dowden MP accompanied Hertsmere resident Kamran Foroughi and his family to Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to present a letter and 2 petitions on behalf of his 77 year old father, Kamal Foroughi.
The letter and petitions are part of the ongoing campaign to secure the release of Kamal Foroughi from Evin prison, Tehran, who was 71 when he was first detained.
The letter, signed by 115 MPs and Peers of all parties, calls on the Foreign Secretary to seek the immediate release of 3 UK prisoners being held in Iran on humanitarian and health grounds: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Roya Nobakht and Kamal Foroughi.
To mark the 2,000th day of Kamal Foroughi’s detention, his son Kamran and two granddaughters) delivered a Change.org petition containing over 217,000 signatures addressed to the Prime Minister.
One petition, presented to Boris Johnson by the family alongside Kate Allen, the Director of Amnesty International UK, has been signed by 72,000 Amnesty supporters.
Mr Foroughi is serving his 6th year of a 7 year sentence for espionage, with no evidence or explanation having been provided in Iran. He was arrested on 5 May 2011 and held mostly in solitary confinement without charge or access to a lawyer until the day before a court hearing nearly two years later (in early 2013). Under Iranian law he has been eligible for conditional release since early 2014 after serving more than a third of his sentence.
Mr Dowden said:
‘I continue to do all I can to secure the release of Mr Foroughi’s father. He is an old man in a bad state of health who has served over half of his sentence for what were trumped-up charges in the first place. The Iranian regime should look to their consciences and allow him to be reinstated with his family without delay.’
He added:
‘The world must not forget about Mr Foroughi’s plight. That is why I felt it was important to deliver this petition personally. I have already raised this issue with the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and others and will continue to do so.’
Since Mr Dowden met Mr Foroughi last summer he has raised the case three times in Parliament, has met with the Foreign Office Minister, Tobias Ellwood, and in May led an Adjournment debate in Parliament, attended by over twenty of his Parliamentary colleagues, calling for Kamal Foroughi's release on compassionate grounds: Link