Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British-Iranian aid worker’s single monitor removed but new court date given

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British-Iranian aid worker’s single monitor removed but new court date given

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Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been under house arrest for almost a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Her five-year sentence would end Sunday.

Richard Ratcliffe told CNN: “I’m still trying to get a grip on what’s going on – but the news is confusing.” Single plate from the first case is off, but Nazanin was summoned to court next week for the second case. So the games continue. ‘

Iranian semi-official news agency Isna has quoted Nazanin-Zaghari’s lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, as saying she will be tried on March 14 on her second charge.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he welcomed the news. “We welcome the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s single plate, but Iran’s continued treatment of her is unbearable,” he tweeted on Sunday. “She should be allowed to return to the UK as soon as possible in order to reunite with her family.”

British MP Tulip Siddiq, who was in touch with Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family, said on Sunday that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s first trip after removing the single plate would be to visit her grandmother.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe pictured with her daughter Gabriella.

An employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was detained at Tehran Airport in April 2016. She tried to return home to London after visiting family with her daughter Gabriella, who was then 22 months old.

The Iranian government has accused her of collaborating with organizations that allegedly tried to overthrow the regime. She was sentenced to five years in prison.

In September, Iranian state media reported that Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her defense attorney had been summoned to the “Branch 15” court to face new charges, but provided no further details. It remains unclear what the new levy or charges may entail.
The British government called the new charges ‘indefensible and unacceptable’.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, now 42, was released from prison to house arrest during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran. According to the British government, she was still under house arrest earlier this year.

She received British diplomatic protection in 2019 and was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

In parliament earlier this year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government was “doing everything in our power” to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release of “the completely unjust detention in Tehran”.

Iran's state television broadcasts unseen video of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Johnson was personally involved in the case. In 2017, when he was foreign minister, he had to apologize after a serious misstep in which he told a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe learned journalism during her visit to Iran. He later explained that she had visited family members before she was detained.
The comments appear to have led to Zaghari-Ratcliffe being summoned to an unplanned court hearing, citing Johnson’s remarks as evidence that she had ‘propaganda against the regime’. A month later, he travels to Tehran to release the release of dual citizens detained in Iran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been on at least three hunger strikes since his arrest, one in a desperate attempt to get medical treatment for lumps in her breasts and numbness in her limbs. Last February, her family said she believed she contracted the coronavirus in the Evin prison outside Tehran. In August 2018, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was treated in hospital after having panic attacks, her husband said. In 2019, her supporters said she was transferred to a mental ward of a hospital in Tehran and that her visits were denied by her father.

Lindsay Isaac and Hande Atay Alam contributed to this report.

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