200 Days in Evin: British-Iranian Woman Jailed for Protesting

Nasrin Roshan, a British-Iranian citizen and political prisoner, has been detained in Iran for over 200 days and is serving a three-year prison sentence in Evin Prison.

Roshan is suffering from joint and back pain and has been denied medical attention despite swelling in her knees and ankles. Iran International has learned that she has developed knee arthritis in prison and her physical condition has deteriorated to the point where her illness has affected her appearance and gait.

She was arrested by security forces at Imam Khomeini International Airport on November 19, 2023, while attempting to legally travel from Tehran to her country of residence, the United Kingdom. Roshan was then taken to a solitary cell in the Intelligence Ministry's detention center known as Ward 209 of Evin Prison.Section 209 of Evin Prison, reportedly the most dreadful ward of the detention facility, is one of three prison sections that are controlled by Iran’s intelligence ministry.

Sara Tabrizian, a former political prisoner who died mysteriously after being released from prison, was arrested with her. She had been summoned to the Intelligence Ministry just one day before her death.

On January 1, 2024, after about a month and a half of torture and interrogation, Roshan was transferred to the women's ward of Evin Prison, where she has remained since.

Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining at least a dozen foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments. Most of them are held on spurious spying charges.

Roshan was later tried by Judge Iman Afshari, head of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, and sentenced to four years in prison on charges of "assembly and collusion" and eight months in prison on charges of "propaganda against the system."

Under Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code, the four-year sentence was the maximum applicable punishment, which was later reduced to three years in prison.

A source familiar with her case told Iran International that her participation in anti-regime rallies following the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police in September 2022, outside Iran was one of the grounds cited by the court in issuing her sentence.

Arash Asiabi, Roshan’s husband, in an interview with Iran International about his wife's continued imprisonment in Iran, said: "My wife has committed no crime and does not deserve to be in prison in Iran. My wife participated in protests outside Iran, just like any conscientious Iranian who cares about their country and people. Giving voice to the Iranian people is not a crime, and she should not spend a single day in prison."

It is not Roshan’s first time inside the Islamic Republic’s prisons. Roshan, born in 1963, was imprisoned in Iran from September 1981 to September 1985, between the ages of 18 and 22.

She spent the first two months of her detention in the 1980s under interrogation and torture in Evin Prison, and the rest of her sentence in Qazal Hesar Prison in Karaj.

Now, 200 days after Roshan’s arrest in Iran, she remains in the women's ward of Evin Prison, and her husband Arash Asiabi and daughter Hasti are worried about her conditions and have been calling on the international community to pressure Iran for her immediate release.