NAZANIN ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE’S HUSBAND BEGINS NEW HUNGER STRIKE IN EFFORT TO FREE HER

Mon 25 October 2021:

After a court ordered her to serve another year in prison, the husband of British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has gone on hunger strike once more.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s humanitarian arm, and was arrested on her way back to the UK after visiting family.

Richard Ratcliffe began his fast on Sunday outside the British Foreign Office in downtown London, hoping to put pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to release her.

“It is increasingly clear that Nazanin’s case could have been solved many months ago – but for other diplomatic agendas. The PM needs to take responsibility for that,” Ratcliffe said.

“We are now giving the UK government the same treatment. In truth, I never expected to have to do a hunger strike twice. It is not a normal act,” Ratcliffe said on his change.org petition.

He said Iran remains the “primary abuser”, but the “UK is also letting us down”.

The family contests the ministerial refusal to pay a historical debt of 400 million pounds ($550m) to Iran that the UK government acknowledges it owes.

He plans to maintain a “constant vigil” by sleeping in a tent outside the building’s main entrance.

He added: “Two years ago I went on hunger strike in front of the Iranian embassy, on the eve of Boris Johnson taking over as prime minister. Two years ago we were allowed to camp in front of the Iranian embassy for 15 days – much to their considerable anger. But it got Gabriella home.

“We are now giving the UK government the same treatment. In truth, I never expected to have to do a hunger strike twice. It is not a normal act. It seems extraordinary the need to adopt the same tactics to persuade government here, to cut through the accountability gap.”

After being arrested at Tehran’s airport in April 2016, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was convicted of plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government, a claim she, her supporters, and human rights organizations deny.

She was sentenced to an additional year in jail in May for participating in a protest outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009 and distributing “propaganda against the system.”

An appeals court upheld the ruling earlier this month. The sentence includes a one-year travel ban, preventing her from leaving Iran until 2023.

(with agencies)

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