UK calls on Iranian ambassador over Zaghari-Ratcliffe

The British government has called on the Iranian ambassador following news that imprisoned British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is to be recalled to court in Iran.

The United Kingdom Foreign Office stated this in a statement released on Thursday October 29, 2020.

The British authorities conveyed their grave concern to the diplomat, Hamid Baeidinejad, and called for Iran to end what they described as Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arbitrary detention.

“We have made it clear to the Iranian ambassador that his country’s treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is unjustified and unacceptable, and is causing an enormous amount of distress,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the dual national was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she prepared to head back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit.

She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment.

Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the charge.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was temporarily released from jail in March in response to concerns about the spread of COVID-19 in Iran’s prisons, but her movements are restricted and she is barred from leaving the country.

She was informed of a new charge in September, Iranian state television reported.