British Council arts employee detained in Iran while visiting family

Aras Amiri, a London-based British Council employee, was arrested in Tehran on March 14 while traveling to the airport after visiting her hospitalized grandmother in Amol. She is being held in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, a facility controlled by Iran's Intelligence Ministry, and has been denied access to legal representation. According to her cousin Mohsen Omrani, authorities have charged her with 'assembly and collusion against national security' without providing specific evidence. Amiri had arrived in Tehran on March 8 and traveled to northern Iran to see her grandmother before returning to the capital. Her work for the British Council involved organizing film and theater festivals for young Iranian artists with official permission from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported her detention, and her family publicly announced the arrest on May 1 while awaiting further developments. Amiri is a graduate student who operated with proper invitations and authorization for her cultural programming activities.