Written question asked by Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Labour) on Monday, 20 November 2017, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 23 November 2017 (named day). It was answered by Alistair Burt (Conservative) on Thursday, 23 November 2017 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Iran: Prisoners

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he intends to visit (a) Kamal Foroughi and (b) any other prisoner in Iran in addition to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during his planned visit to that country.

Answer: The Foreign Secretary hopes to visit Iran later this year. While the itinerary for this is not yet confirmed, he will have a wide range of discussions, including on all our consular cases. Our Ambassador to Iran regularly requests consular access to our dual-national prisoners, not least so that we can check on their welfare. Iran considers these individuals to be Iranians under Iranian law and has therefore not granted the British Government access. Although there is no international legal obligation to recognise dual nationality, we consider them to be British and will continue to request access to them.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 114554
Session: 2017-19
Subjects: Prisoners Foreign and Commonwealth Office Iran Visits abroad Foroughi, Kamal Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Nazanin
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk