Husband of Nazanin ends strike
THE husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe is ending his hunger strike after three weeks.
Richard Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food.
He began the protest on October 24 after his wife, 46, lost her latest appeal against imprisonment in Iran, saying his family was “caught in a dispute between two states”.
He has been calling on the Government to pay a £400million debt to Iran, dating from the 1970s.
On Saturday morning. on King Charles Street where Mr Ratcliffe has been staging his hunger strike, he said his job is to “keep going”, adding: “We probably hoped we’d get a breakthrough doing this.
We haven’t yet. I didn’t want to go out in an ambulance. I want to walk out with head held high.”
Mr Ratcliffe said he was starting to get pains in his feet overnight and after a chat with a doctor the decision was made to end the hunger strike.
He said he planned to go to hospital to get checked out and hoped to be able to eat something after that.
Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe, a British-iranian dual national, has been in custody in Iran since 2016 after being accused of plotting to overthrow the government.
She was taking the couple’s daughter
Gabriella to see her family when she was arrested and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Evin Prison and one under house arrest.
During his hunger strike, Mr Ratcliffe has been visited by supporters including Strictly Come Dancing co-host Claudia Winkleman, writer and presentervictoria Coren Mitchell, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his local Mp,tulip Siddiq.