A group of bikers rallied behind the family of Lindsay and Craig Foreman today by riding to Parliament Square in London, marking 600 days of the couple’s detention in Iran.
The couple, from East Sussex, were arrested in January 2025 while riding through Iran on an overland motorcycle trip to Australia, and have since been sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges they and their family strongly deny.
On the way to Westminster, the group stopped at the Iranian Embassy so that Lindsay Foreman’s son, Joe Bennett, could hand deliver a letter to the Iranian Ambassador.
“It was a plea for them to be seen… a plea for the [phone] calls to come back on, but ultimately for their innocence to prevail,” Bennett told MCN afterwards.
He had emailed the embassy the day before to give notice of his visit, and a meeting with Ambassador Mousavi had been floated as a possibility, though it didn’t materialise today. “It doesn’t mean that it’s not doable in the future, and that’s with the indication I’ve got today, so we’ll see how that pans out,” he said.
Bennett was blunt about how little has changed over the past year, saying: “I think it’s increased visibility [that we need]. I think the case is already quite visible, but what we need off the back of that is action.
“If I look back this time last year, I was pushing for the same thing – I was pushing for the first phone call, and now again I’m pushing for a phone call a year on. So that doesn’t reek of progression, that signals regression.
“It’s hostage-taking, it’s arbitrary detention,” he continued, before urging the Government to act accordingly.
“It’s not lost on me that tensions are high and there are complexities around Iran as a country at the moment. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do what we can here, politically.”
Top of that list is a meeting with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, adding: “That’s one thing I’d love to come from today… I think an outcome would be brilliant if we could sit down with Ed and really put the case to him, so the political will changes. I think that’s the ultimate thing – political will.”
Asked how he responds to online critics who suggest the couple brought their detention on themselves by travelling to Iran, Bennett didn’t dismiss the question.
“People are entitled to their opinions, and what I won’t do is try to change them,” he said. “But all I will say is that these are two innocent people who are adventurers… They’ve gone off the advice of people who’ve done the same trip.”
He pointed out the couple had followed standard precautions: valid visas, a travel guide, sticking to main roads and hotels, avoiding Tehran, and planning only a four-day stay in the country.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing,” he said. “In any adventure you’re taking a risk – if you hop on a motorbike you’re taking a risk, right? You just are. So I get it, I have the same thoughts, but ultimately it doesn’t take away two things: one, they’re innocent, they don’t deserve what’s happening to them. And two, it doesn’t abolish the responsibility of the Government to get them home.”
Also at today’s event was Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was previously held in Evin Prison for five years (where Craig and Lindsay are currently held). Ratcliffe pushed back firmly on the idea that publicising a case makes things worse.
“Two innocent people travelling to Iran got taken, and a load of spurious nonsense got put up as to why they’ve been taken, and then b…