Kingston University student and cultural activist Aras Amiri who was incarcerated on September 8 of last year in Tehran, has written a letter to the chief of Islamic Republic Judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, in which she denies her charges and states that she has been sentenced to ten years in prison only for “declining an offer to cooperate with the Ministry of Intelligence.

In the letter, Amiri mentions that she was first arrested on March 14 of 2018 by Intelligence agents and was taken to Ward 209 of Evin Prison. She states that despite paying her bail, the agents refused to release her and said: “It was a mistake to set bail.”

She goes on to say that she was kept in solitary confinement in Evin Prison for 69 days and during her detainment and interrogations, she was faced with charges of “conspiracy to act against the national security through assemblies” and later “membership in an illegal group”, and that she was interrogated in the mornings and afternoons with a short break in between.

After being detained for 69 days, she was released on bail of 500 million tomans.

According to Amiri, after her release, her interrogators continued to contact her, but “in the third visit, I declined their direct offer of cooperation and told them that I can only officially work in my own field of expertise and nothing else.”

She was then summoned by the court again and was finally sentenced to ten years in prison.

According to Amiri, the interrogators were focused on her job in the British Council and told her that “issue is not me, but the British Council.”