This morning most of us woke up in our comfy beds. Roya Nobakht woke up in a cell in one of Iran’s toughest prisons. The 47 year old Stockport resident, a joint British/Iranian national, faces 20 years in prison.

He crime? Not murder, nor drug smuggling nor anything else most of us would think might possibly warrant such a fate. Roya’s crime was to criticise the Iranian government for being “too Islamic” on Facebook. Roya posted the comments in the UK, and she was then arrested whilst on holiday in the country last year.

Photo from Manchester Evening News.

Cheadle MP Mark Hunter and the Foreign Office are pressing for an early appeal, but that could take months. Mark Hunter will also be raising the case in Parliament and with Amnesty International.

Roya, who lives in Heald Green, Stockport, was a part-time student at Stockport College and housewife before vanishing whilst on holiday in Iran. When she failed to come home last October her husband travelled to Iran to find her and, after scouring hospitals, finally discovered the truth of her plight.

Roya is in the women’s wing of the notorious Evin prison and family members allege she’s been tortured. Understandably, relatives say she’s not doing well and there are real questions as to her health, both physical and mental.

It is wrong that anyone should be imprisoned for criticising a Government. When that person is a British national on holiday in Iran and the criticism is a comment on Facebook made in the UK, it is an appalling outrage against human rights.

Please support the campaign to Free Roya.

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