Iran’s new jailing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe draws British condemnation
One of Iran’s highest-profile political prisoners, Briton Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has been sentenced to another year in jail.
One of Iran’s highest-profile political prisoners, Briton Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has been sentenced to another year in jail, bringing condemnation from the British government, which described the decision as “totally inhumane and wholly unjustified”.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a mother of one, has already served five years in Iran’s notorious prisons, including alongside Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in Evin prison, accused of spying.
But on Monday the 42-year-old was sentenced on another charge with a further one-year jail term for allegedly attending a protest outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009 and giving an interview to BBC Persian.
“I don‘t think it’s right at all that Nazanin should be sentenced to any more time in jail,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
“I think it is wrong that she is there in the first place, and we will be working very hard to secure her release from Iran, her ability to return to her family here in the UK – just as we work for all our dual national cases in Iran.”
There are ongoing fears that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe continues to be used as a bargaining chip with the British government, with Iran wanting the return of hundreds of millions of dollars it believes it is owed when military tanks were never delivered after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first arrested in Iran in 2016 while visiting her grandmother with her young daughter, Gabriella.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the further sentence was “a totally inhumane and wholly unjustified decision’’, adding, “we continue to call on Iran to release Nazanin immediately so she can return to her family in the UK. We continue to do all we can to support her.”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the Emtedad news website that the Iranian revolutionary court found her guilty of making propaganda against the Islamic republic and banned her from leaving the country for a year.
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