The chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has advised all Westerners to leave Iran.
Alicia Kearns said the country was had shown that it would “happily” detain those with dual citizenship as it seeks to blame escalating protests against its own repressive regime on foreign powers.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested seven people with links to Britain, including some who hold dual nationality.
Ms Kearns also expressed fears that people could be arrested even as they tried to flee the country.
She said: “My concern is very grave. The fact is that Iran has shown that it will happily arrest anyone that has dual citizenship.”
“If I was a British foreign national in Iran I would absolutely be leaving. Because there is evidence that they will use them in any game of chess they can and they will face brutal repression… I would encourage anyone that was Western to try and leave Iran as safely as they can.”
The unrest began in September following the death in detention of a 22-year-old Iranian women arrested under Iran’s strict Islamic dress code for wearing “inappropriate” clothing.
Last month Rishi Sunak warned that his government was going to have spend more time next year tackling the threat posed by Iran.
He told MPs that Iran’s treatment of protesters in recent months was “abhorrent”.
He added: “Whilst Russia and Ukraine remains our number one foreign policy challenge as we go into the new year, I am increasingly concerned about Iran’s behaviour and the treatment of their citizens, what they’re doing in the region which is destabilising and indeed the nuclear programme.
“So I think it’s something that we’ll need to spend increasing amount of time on going forward.”
The protests were a very clear message that the Iranian people were not satisfied “with the path that the government has taken”, he added.
