British-Iranian’s release from jail in Tehran, due to Covid-19 outbreak, now runs until 18 April
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has said her temporary leave from prison in Iran has been extended.
Richard Ratcliffe said his wife’s father had been told that her temporary release from Evin prison in Tehran - granted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - had been extended by two weeks and would now run until April 18.
Continue reading...Roland Marchal, whose colleague remains in detention, reportedly released in return for Iranian engineer
Emmanuel Macron says Iran has freed a French researcher imprisoned in the country, after France reportedly released an Iranian threatened with extradition to the US.
Macron said on Saturday he was “happy to announce the release of Roland Marchal, imprisoned in Iran since June 2019” and urged the Iranian authorities to immediately also free fellow researcher Fariba Adelkhah, the French president’s office said.
Continue reading...British-Iranian dual national required to wear ankle brace and stay close to parents’ home
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national, has been temporarily released from Evin prison on Tehran, but will be required to wear an ankle brace and not move more than 300 metres from her parents’ home.
Her two-week release came after weeks of family and diplomatic pressure on the Iranian judicial authorities to accept she was in vulnerable position in jail as the threat of coronavirus spread through Iran’s prison system.
Continue reading...Envoy says Britain is taking a new approach to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe without acknowledging any link to the debt
The Iranian ambassador to the UK says the British government is taking a new approach to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, adding bilateral talks were taking place over the payment of an outstanding £400m debt owed by the UK to Iran.
Hamid Baeidinejad said the two sides were looking at novel ways for the debt to be paid.
Continue reading...Officials claim British-Iranian dual national has not been affected by coronavirus
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being offered temporary release from Evin prison in Tehran due to the risk of the coronavirus outbreak reaching Iran’s jails.
The news was confirmed by the Iranian ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, and by Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency MP in north-west London, Tulip Siddiq.
Continue reading...Despite reports of Covid-19 in Evin prison, staff are refusing to test her, say campaigners
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran, is suspected to have the coronavirus, her family has said.
The Free Nazanin Campaign said that although there were reports of at least one coronavirus-related inmate death inside Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, staff had refused to test her.
Continue reading...Anoosheh Ashoori, a British-Iranian citizen, is among those who may be forced to move
Prisoners in Iran’s Evin prison, including a British-Iranian dual national, are protesting against plans for them to be transferred to a ward that they believe previously held a coronavirus victim.
Sherry Ashoori, whose dual national husband, Anoosheh Ashoori, 65, was jailed by the Iranian authorities for 12 years, said she has contacted the Foreign Office to warn them of the plans to transfer her husband and others to the prison’s ward 4.
Continue reading...British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert wants to be removed from solitary confinement
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is to go on hunger strike in solidarity with another dual national being held in Iran.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic, started an open-ended hunger strike six days ago in protest at being sentenced to 10 years on espionage charges. She wants at minimum to be moved from solitary confinement.
Continue reading...Chinese-born Princeton student, sentenced to 10 years in prison, exchanged for Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani
A Chinese-born US citizen sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran on spying charges has been released as part of a prisoner swap.
Related: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe makes tearful appeal to be released from Iran jail
Continue reading...Other dual nationals also in jail because of UK failure to repay debt to Iran, says husband
Boris Johnson made only “placebo promises” to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and is responsible for putting more British-Iranian dual nationals in the jails in Iran, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, claims in a private letter to the prime minister.
Ratcliffe sent the letter 100 days ago, seeking a meeting alongside his daughter, Gabriella, to discuss his wife’s three-and-a-half-year imprisonment.
Continue reading...Husband of jailed British-Iranian hopes Gabriella’s return ‘unlocks another’
The five-year-old daughter of the imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has returned to the UK.
Gabriella was living with her grandparents in Tehran and visiting her mother in prison in an attempt to minimise the trauma inflicted upon the family, while her father, Richard Ratcliffe, campaigned for his wife’s release. She was arrested three-and-a-half years ago on spying charges, which she denies.
Continue reading...Judge in Lodnon to decide amount UK should pay Tehran over 40-year-old arms deal
A court hearing in London over a £400m debt owed by the UK government to Iran could help decide the fate of the Iranian-British dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, imprisoned in Evin jail in Tehran for the last four years.
Mr Justice Phillips is being asked in the high court to settle the precise amount the UK should pay to the Iranians for a broken arms contract stretching bank 40 years.
Continue reading...No progress in cases of dual-nationals arrested but catalogue of British failings is also long
The summoning of the Iranian ambassador to the British Foreign Office on Wednesday over broken assurances about the destination of an Iranian oil tanker, and now the arrest of two British-Australian nationals, marks yet another stage in the mutual blame game between Britain and Iran that leaves the relationship stuck deeper in a frustrating rut.
From the British perspective, well articulated by the former Middle East minister Alistair Burt, those in the UK government who would have liked to build a new relationship with Iran in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal feel very badly let down by Tehran.
Continue reading...James Tyson decries ‘diplomatic failings’ after Iran rejects fiancee’s appeal
My fiancee is in an Iranian prison, a victim of the depravity of international relations
The fiance of Aras Amiri, a British Council employee imprisoned in Iran on spying charges, has accused the UK government of being “utterly blind to their responsibility” to try to secure her release.
An appeal against Amiri’s 10-year sentence was rejected without a hearing earlier this week, in a decision that prompted her family to call on the UK government to intervene.
Continue reading...Judge finds in UK’s favour in dispute that has been linked to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case
The path to improved British-Iranian relations has hit a new barrier after the high court in London ruled that the UK does not have to pay at least £20m interest on the £387m it owes to Iran over the cancelled sale of Chieftain tanks in the 1970s.
The debt was seen by Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary as critical to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Iranian-British dual national imprisoned in Tehran.
Continue reading...Labour MP raises fears British-Iranian woman being tortured into signing forced confession
Downing Street has urged Iran to allow the family of a detained British-Iranian woman to visit amid fears that she is being tortured to sign a forced confession after she was moved to an isolated psychiatric ward.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was moved to the mental health ward of Iman Khomeini hospital on Monday – a move that the family initially welcomed after months of calling for her to get medical treatment.
Continue reading...Revolutionary Guards will not allow family to contact her, according to Richard Ratcliffe
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Tehran for more than three years, has been transferred to a mental health ward where Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have prevented relatives from contacting her, according to her husband.
Richard Ratcliffe said his wife was moved from Evin prison on Monday to the mental ward of Imam Khomeini hospital. Her father tried to visit her there but was repeatedly denied access by the guards, who also prevented him from calling his daughter, Ratcliffe said.
Continue reading...Husband also ends strike outside Iranian embassy in London after wife takes food
The imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has ended her hunger strike after 15 days.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who had been holding his own hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy in London in solidarity, said on Saturday his wife had eaten some porridge and fruit.
Continue reading...Fast must not go ‘to bitter end’ as they are parents to Gabriella, says Richard Ratcliffe
Richard Ratcliffe will join his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, in her hunger strike for as long as he can, he has said, as the couple sought to increase pressure on the Iranian government for her release after three years’ imprisonment in Iran on charges she denies.
But Ratcliffe said it was important the action did not go “to the bitter end” because of their five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who is also unable to leave Iran and return to the UK.
Continue reading...Richard Ratcliffe fasts outside Iranian embassy in London to call for wife’s release
The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has begun a hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy in London in solidarity with his wife. Richard Ratcliffe called for a meeting with the next prime minister and demanded the incoming government stand up for British citizens unjustly held abroad.
The British-Iranian woman started her third hunger strike against her continued imprisonment in Iran on Saturday. She had vowed to take action if she was still in jail on their daughter Gabriella’s fifth birthday. At the same time, a vigil got under way in front of the country’s embassy in Knightsbridge.
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