US imposes visa bans on Iranian officials over protest crackdown

Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both in their 50s, were arrested in January 2025 while on a motorcycle trip through Iran. They deny the charges.

The couple were tried in October at Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court and were not allowed to present a defense, according to their son, Joe Bennett. A judge delivered the verdict in recent days, the family told BBC.

“We are deeply concerned about their welfare,” Bennett said, urging the British government to “act decisively and use every available avenue” to bring them home.

He said Iranian authorities had presented no evidence of espionage and that their lawyers had been told there was no legal basis for the case. Applications for bail were ignored, he added.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has decried their sentence as "completely appalling and totally unjustifiable".

"We will pursue this case relentlessly with the Iranian government until we see Craig and Lindsay Foreman safely returned to the UK and reunited with their family," she said.

Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has previously said it was “deeply concerned” by the couple’s detention and that it continued to raise the case directly with Iranian authorities.

The Foremans are being held in separate wings of Tehran’s Evin prison, which rights groups have long criticized over alleged torture and inhumane conditions.

Bennett has said the couple endured 13 months in dire conditions, surrounded by “dirt, vermin, and violence,” and that they had been losing weight.

In November, Bennett said his mother had begun a hunger strike inside Evin, telling him during a brief phone call that “not eating was the only power she’s got.”

The couple were first detained in the southeastern city of Kerman, where they spent 30 days in solitary confinement before being transferred to Tehran, the family has said. They had entered Iran with valid visas, a licensed guide and a cleared itinerary, Bennett added.

Rights groups and Western governments have long accused Iran of engaging in so-called “hostage diplomacy” by detaining foreign nationals to gain political or economic concessions, an allegation Tehran rejects, saying it faces Western intelligence infiltration.

The United States is weighing options to target Iranian political and military leaders as well as nuclear and ballistic missile facilities, as it assembles its largest concentration of air power in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq invasion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

US and foreign officials told the newspaper that options presented to President Donald Trump range from a broad campaign aimed at killing scores of Iranian leaders in a bid to topple the government, to a more limited air operation focused on nuclear and missile targets.

The military buildup includes F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, additional command-and-control aircraft, strengthened air defenses and a second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, enabling what officials described as the capacity for a sustained, weeks-long campaign.

Both scenarios would likely involve a potentially weeks-long operation, the report said, underscoring the scale of the current US military posture in the region.

The imagery shows a new facility at the Parchin military complex covered with a concrete shield and soil, while tunnel entrances at the Isfahan nuclear site have been backfilled.

Tunnel access at Natanz and missile bases damaged during last June’s 12‑day conflict with Israel have also been strengthened.

The reconstruction appears designed to address weaknesses exposed during the brief war, when Israeli strikes targeted Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure and Tehran responded with missiles and drones.

The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear program last year, for which Trump set a 60-day deadline.

When no agreement was reached by the 61st day on June 13, Israel launched a surprise military offensive, followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.

The fortification work comes as indirect nuclear talks in Geneva remain unresolved. Iran is preparing a written proposal to address US concerns, while Washington has reinforced its regional military posture, including carrier strike groups and additional naval assets, amid concerns that diplomacy could stall.

The Reuters report said the combination of hardened facilities, ongoing military readiness, and persistent diplomatic negotiations reflects Tehran’s dual strategy of safeguarding strategic infrastructure while keeping open the possibility of a negotiated settlement.

The United States has long insisted that Iran must completely halt its uranium enrichment program, stop supporting its armed allies in the Middle East and accept restrictions on its ballistic missile program.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Monday the United States will never succeed in toppling the Islamic Republic and warned that even the world’s strongest military can suffer crippling blows.

Iran is rushing military and domestic preparations for possible US strikes if nuclear negotiations collapse, amid its most severe regime threat in decades, Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Leaders are dispersing command authority via “mosaic defense,” hardening nuclear sites (Isfahan, Pickaxe Mountain tunnels), deploying IRGC naval units to the Strait of Hormuz, and conducting air-defense drills. A Russian warship joined planned exercises near the USS Abraham Lincoln.

“Domestically, over 53,000 arrests and more than 7,000 deaths from recent protests have triggered intensified crackdowns, including monitoring points in Tehran, hospital record hunts, and arrests of dissidents like Narges Mohammadi,” the report said.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon on Wednesday criticized Iran’s appointment as vice‑chair of the UN Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations, calling it a “moral absurdity.”

“A regime that violates the basic principles of the UN cannot sit in a leadership position that deals with strengthening them,” he said.

Iran secured the position without a formal vote at the committee’s opening session. The committee, a subsidiary of the UN Legal Committee, meets annually to discuss Charter principles and ways to strengthen them, though consensus rules limit its practical impact and in recent years it has become a venue for broader political disputes among member states.