British-Iranian imprisoned in Iran for six years speaks of slow recovery from captivity and severance from her Iranian family
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has spoken of her “constant worry” about her family in Iran, saying she cannot return to the country where she was imprisoned for six years.
The British-Iranian also revealed how it had been “very hard to adjust” since returning to the UK in March 2022.
Continue reading...Free Nazanin campaign says Iran’s ‘hostage diplomacy’ is becoming normalised and calls for more coherent response
A UN inquiry into human rights in Iran has been asked to intervene in the growing detention of Iranian dual nationals and to identify the practice as unlawful state hostage-taking.
The inquiry, set up last November by the UN human rights council and being overseen by three lawyers, is due to report in March 2024. A submission from the Free Nazanin campaign, which worked for the release of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, warns the UN body that Iran is normalising the capture of dual nationals for use as diplomatic bargaining chips.
Continue reading...Two US residents, one of whom is on death row, are being unfairly excluded, says Richard Ratcliffe
Two US residents, one in fear of execution, are being unfairly excluded from an imminent deal between US-Iran to release prisoners, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has claimed.
Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed after five years in a Tehran prison
in 2022, said there was no legal reason why the two residents were not included in a deal to release five US citizens in return for the unfreezing of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian assets in South Korea. It is also expected that four Iranians will be released from US jails.
Officials involved in arrest and intimidation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe named in Commons
The Foreign Office has failed to sanction key Iranians responsible for the arrest and intimidation of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe despite being passed their names in September, MPs have claimed.
Chris Bryant, a Labour member of the foreign affairs select committee, named Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour, a state TV journalist, and Hossein Taeb, the former head of intelligence in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as part of a group of 10 Iranians who he said needed to be sanctioned for state hostage-taking. It is the first time the two names have been released.
Continue reading...Sanaa Seif says UK government is not standing up for her brother Alaa Abd El Fattah, on hunger strike and facing death
The sister of a British dual national human rights activist held in a Cairo jail and on the 74th day of a hunger strike, on Tuesday urged the UK foreign secretary to publicly demand that Alaa Abd El Fattah is saved from death by being released.
Sanaa Seif was speaking at an event attended by Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the released British-Iranian dual national, and Gurpreet Singh, the brother of Jagtar Singh Johal – a Sikh activist from Dunbarton detained by the Indian police nearly five years ago. He has still not been charged and says a confession was extracted under torture.
Continue reading...Debt paid as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh-Ashoori were released is blocked in Oman, Iran says
The historic £400m debt the UK paid to Iran at the time of the release of British-Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori has still not reached Tehran, according to Iranian government sources.
A senior Iranian government source said the money was blocked in Oman and the problem was not with the UK government. One report said only £1m had been transferred to Tehran.
Continue reading...Tri-national was excluded from deal leading to release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian left behind when two others were released from Iranian detention a fortnight ago, has ended a nine-day hunger strike at the pleading of his family, his daughter has said.
He remains in jail in Tehran contrary to an agreement the British claimed it had struck with the Iranians.
Continue reading...Briton held captive in Iran for six years should not face online trolling, says Boris Johnson’s office
Downing Street has condemned critics of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who accused her of being “ungrateful” after she expressed frustration with the UK government for taking six years to secure her release from an Iranian jail.
Days after touching down in Britain, Zaghari-Ratcliffe faced abuse on social media for saying it should not have taken so long for ministers to ensure she returned home safely.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Jeremy Hunt uses Twitter thread to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was failed by government
There have been reports in recent days saying that Boris Johnson wants to visit Ukraine and last night, in an interview with Andrew Marr for his new LBC show, Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party co-chair, confirmed them, saying the PM was “desperate” to visit the war zone. Dowden said:
I think the prime minister is desperate to go to Ukraine and has throughout this conflict felt a real - as the British people have done - a real emotional connection with the suffering of the Ukrainian people and a need for the West to unite in standing up to this threat from Russia which has been exposed to Ukraine.
I think it’s both to see what’s going on the ground, because it’s very different talking to somebody on the phone versus actually seeing it in practice - and, by the way, I should say that no decisions have been taken in relation to this - but then secondly, it’s actually to experience what is happening there, to see what is happening. To the people on the ground. I think that is very different to just speaking remotely.
Continue reading...Former defence secretary says investigation could help determine why it took six years to secure release
The former British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has called for an independent investigation into why it took six years to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, saying she was right to question why her release took so long to secure.
Both Hunt and the former foreign minister Alistair Burt have said they would be willing to give evidence about the issues involved in securing her release. Burt has proposed there should be a foreign affairs select committee inquiry into why the payment of a historic debt was delayed.
Continue reading...Conservationist detained since 2018 left behind when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori released
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian-American citizen left behind last week when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return home to the UK, has been taken from Evin prison to a hotel in Tehran after representations by the British and American governments, the Foreign Office has said.
The department added that it was lobbying the Iranian authorities at the highest levels to allow him to return to his Tehran home immediately as the Iranian government had previously committed to do.
Continue reading...Freed 10 years ago after seven months held hostage, Tebbutt watched homecoming of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with joy and trepidation
Ten years ago on Monday, Judith Tebbutt walked onto a plane and out of the hands of the Somali pirates, kidnappers and murderers who had held her captive for almost seven months.
Her husband, David, had been shot dead by Tebbutt’s initial captors when they burst into the couple’s bedroom in their isolated, luxury holiday resort.
Continue reading...Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe are free but other families in the west are waiting anxiously
Dotted across Europe and America are families of as many as 17 dual nationals still held in jail in Iran, watching nervously to find out whether their loved ones will follow Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane to freedom, or be left behind.
Many fear their freedom is not being made a precondition of the west agreeing a nuclear deal with Iran in the talks nearing a climax in Vienna. Without an acknowledged debt to repay like the UK’s, some of their countries may have trouble striking deals, and that worries the families.
Continue reading...Family of freed British-Iranian detainee Anoosheh Ashoori had to pay last-minute fine in cash
The family of the British-Iranian detainee Anoosheh Ashoori had to scramble at the last minute to raise £27,000 to pay a fine to the Iranian government, delivering the money in cash to the authorities in Tehran’s Evin prison for it to be counted and authenticated.
The Iranian government told British Foreign Office negotiators late on Monday that his release would be blocked unless the fine, linked to his 10-year jail sentence, was paid the following day. Ashooori was released along with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on Wednesday after the UK paid Iran a longstanding £400m debt.
Continue reading...The woman freed from six years’ detention told her MP about the fraught last moments in Iran and the bliss of her return
Even as she entered the airport clutching her British passport for the first time in six years, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she could not believe she was finally about to return home to her husband and daughter.
The last moments of her ordeal in Iran, where she had been held by the regime, in effect as a hostage, on trumped-up charges, were far from straightforward and fraught with anxieties.
Continue reading...Family says he was taken from home in Iranian capital by armed guards only 48 hours after being released
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian given a furlough as part of a deal to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori has been returned to Evin prison in Tehran under armed guard only 48 hours after being released.
The Foreign Office insisted that the Iranians have told them that Tahbaz is only being returned to the prison to have an ankle tag installed and they expect to see him returned home in the coming hours.
Continue reading...Richard Ratcliffe says they are looking forward to a new, normal life after his wife’s long detention in Iran
The parents-in-law of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe have joked that their son’s home needed to be tidied as it was in an “appalling” state, and said they hoped to see their daughter-in-law at the weekend.
On BBC Breakfast, John Ratcliffe described his son Richard’s home as “appalling”, to which his wife, Barbara, replied: “It is, but if you can think about it, it was a three-bedroom flat when Nazanin got taken and they’d only got a baby in it. Well, that baby’s grown up.”
Continue reading...Plane carrying mother-of-one and fellow British-Iranian detainee Anoosheh Ashoori lands at RAF Brize Norton early on Thursday morning
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has touched down on British soil for the first time since she was detained in Iran six years ago.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrived at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in the early hours of Thursday morning. The mother-of-one, whose husband Richard has long campaigned for her release, left Iran with fellow British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, on Wednesday after their release was secured.
Continue reading...Relatives of the two Britons freed from Iran express gratitude as they head home
Iran’s release of the British-Iranian nationals Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been greeted with joy by their families, with Richard Ratcliffe saying: “Homecoming is a journey, not an arrival.”
Ratcliffe, who has been at the forefront of campaigning for his wife’s release since she was imprisoned in Tehran after going there to visit family, told broadcasters that there would have to be a recovery process, adding: “You can’t get back the time that’s gone.”
Continue reading...Latest updates: husband of British-Iranian woman detained in Iran thanks supporters for ‘kindness and care’ as she embarks on the final leg of her journey home to UK
Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP who has Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a constituent, has paid tribute to Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, for the role she played in getting Nazanin released. This is from the Times’ Steven Swinford.
Penny Madden, the lawyer who represents Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband, told Sky News a few moments ago that “hopes remain very high” this morning. But she said Richard was not able to relax until Nazanin was on the flight home. She said she had spoken to Richard this morning. He was “excited”, but “tinged with anxiety”.
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