I’m oin camping to get PM to bring Mummy back
How Nazanin’s husband explained his hunger strike to their daughter
EXCLUSIVE
THE rain soaks little Gabriella Ratcliffe as she points out the colourful pebbles she has painted to brighten the damp pavement her daddy’s tent is pitched on outside the Foreign Office.
It is half-term for the sevenyear-old, but this Westminster street is where she will be spending most of it, alongside dad Richard Ratcliffe. On Sunday, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe began a second hunger strike, camping on the Government’s doorstep in a bid to force them to take tougher action to bring his wife home. His first, outside the Iranian embassy in
2019, lasted 15 days. Nazanin has been held in Iran since 2016, when she was accused of spying as she took Gabriella to visit family there. Her sentence was extended after Boris Johnson said in 2017, when he was Foreign Secretary, that she had entered the country to teach journalists – yet he has insisted his gaffe made “no difference” to her case. In April a new one-year term was imposed and Nazanin has recently been told her appeal against it has failed. She is now under house arrest at her parents’ home in Tehran but fears she could be returned to jail. Richard says: “She is one phone call away from returning to prison. This is all we had left.”
He does not say how long he plans to continue, but adds: “This needs to be done properly, there is no point in it being a flippant gesture.
“A few weeks ago Nazanin wasn’t in favour of it; it was different after the sentence was passed. But she is worried about me, and Gabriella.”
He last ate on Sunday morning and was woken by police in the early hours yesterday. He says: “There will come a point where we will not want Gabriella to be here, as I get weaker and less lucid. But for now I’ve told her I’m going camping and I’m not going to be eating, and it’s to get Boris Johnson to get Mummy back.”
Richard wants Nazanin and others to be recognised as hostages, and for action against Iranian officials responsible for her imprisonment. He is also calling for nuclear negotiations with Iran to include a commitment to end hostage-taking.
And he is urging the Government to pay the £400million arms debt Britain owes to Iran, which has been linked to Nazanin’s case.
Richard’s frustration reached breaking point when new Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gave no sign of clear action and suggested he liaise with a junior minister. He said: “I’m not looking for words, but actions.”