British-Iranian criticises UK prison release efforts
A BRITISH-IRANIAN charity worker held in Tehran for six years said on March 21 that the UK government could have helped free her earlier, and called for all “unjustly detained” prisoners in Iran to be released.
Speaking publicly for the first time since returning home, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said the UK government knew that Tehran wanted a historic £400million ($530-million) debt to be paid for her to be liberated.
“I think it was week two or week three that I was arrested, like six years ago, that they [Iran officials] told me, ‘We want something off the Brits. We will not let you go until such time that we get it’,” she told a news conference.
“And they did keep their promise,” said Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who flew home on March 16 with retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, after London agreed to settle the sum paid by the Shah-era Iranian government for tanks in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution.
She described herself as “a pawn in the hands of two governments” who had been caught up in a wider dispute that had “nothing to do” with her, and said all those unfairly detained in Iran in similar circumstances should be freed.
“The meaning of freedom is never going to be complete [until] such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families,” she added.
“Other dual nationals, members of religious groups, or prisoners of conscience ... there are so many other people we don’t know their names who have been suffering in prison in Iran.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, flanked by her husband, Richard, said little of her experience in prison, including in solitary confinement, but said it would “always haunt” her.
She worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the news and data agency, and was arrested in Tehran on a visit to see family in 2016, accused of plotting to overthrow the regime.
Ashoori, a retired engineer from southeast London, was arrested in 2017 and jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel.
Dual nationals from Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden and the US have also been arrested in similar circumstances.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe criticised UK diplomatic efforts over the years to get her out, during which time five foreign ministers promised to secure her release.
“I was told many, many times that ‘Oh we’re going to get you home’,” she said.
“What’s happened now should have happened six years ago ... I shouldn’t have been in prison for six years,” she said.
Another British-Iranian, Morad Tahbaz, who also has a US passport, is still being held in Iran.
A Tehran court in 2020 jailed Tahbaz for 10 years on charges of spying, conspiring with Washington and damaging national security.
He and seven others convicted on similar charges worked with environmental group Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation to track endangered species and were arrested on suspicion of espionage in early 2018.
Tahbaz’s sister said earlier on March 21 that he had gone on hunger strike and accused the UK government of abandoning him after the two other detainees were released.