Lunch with Anoosheh Ashoori
Held hostage in Iran with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Tuesday 24th March | 12.00 for 12.30 | Clive Room | £65.00
When Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe landed at RAF Brize Norton in March, 2022, released from being held prisoner in Iran since 2016, she was accompanied by a man whom some observers – and many subsequently seeing photographs and camera footage – assumed was her father. In fact, Anoosheh Ashoori, alongside her that day, was, himself, a prisoner in Iran since 2017, also held for espionage, and, in his case, “acquiring illegitimate wealth”. They were both freed after lengthy negotiations between the UK Government and Iranian officials.
Join Anoosheh for a salon lunch where he will share insights into his ordeal, where he suffered without adequate prostate and cholesterol medication on which he was dependent. Share also in his unique, first-hand, insider observations about his native Iran.
A retired engineer, the Iranian-born Anoosheh had lived in the UK for two decades, having first arrived in 1972 and shuttling between here and his homeland. During a visit to see his mother in Iran he was arrested and then convicted of spying for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. There followed solitary confinement, legal proceedings when he was forced to represent himself, hunger strikes to draw attention to his predicament, and moments of utter resolve to defy his incarcerators the belief that there was injustice to his imprisonment.
This unique lunch will be both a personal perspective and a geopolitical overview of Iran and Anglo-Iranian relations from someone who has intimate insight stretching back to pre-revolutionary days. A most timely occasion.