Boris blunder ‘may increase Brit mother’s Iran jail term’
ACATASTROPHIC blunder by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has left a British women being held in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons facing years more of incarceration.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 39, was jailed in April 2016 on claims that she was working to overthrow the government while she was visiting her parents in Iran with her daughter Gabriella.
The British-Iranian citizen was sentenced to five years imprisonment in Evin Prison on charges which have not been made public and has been held as a political prisoner ever since.
Remarks by Mr Johnson to a committee of MPs, in which he said she was training journalists, now threaten to make Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plight even worse.
His comments have been seized on by the Iranian State, which summoned her to an unscheduled court hearing and cited as proof she was engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.
Mr Johnson’s comments put at risk all the work done by her family – including sister-in-law Rebecca Jones, who lives in Cardiff – to campaign for her freedom.
At the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said: “When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it.
“[Neither] Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”
The Times reported that new charges of propaganda against the regime could now add a further five years to her incarceration.
While Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the BBC, she mas maintained that the visit to Iran was for her daughter to meet her parents, not for a political purpose.
Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation,said: “I once again urge Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to immediately correct the serious mistake he made at the Foreign Affairs Committee in Parliament.”
She added: “This accusation from Judge Salavati can only worsen her sentence. She is obviously a bargaining chip between the UK government and Iran and this injustice must stop as soon as possible.
“Whatever is at stake should be paid attention to by the UK government.”
Speaking to the Western Mail last month, Ms Jones, who lives in Cardiff, spoke about the impact her imprisonment had had on her family, especially her daughter Gabriella.
She said: “Gabriella is three now and she has grown up so quickly without her mother and father. Half of her life Gabriella has been away from her mum and dad.”