Gove tries to defend Johnson gaffe but adds one of his own
MICHAEL GOVE has come under fire after appearing to cast doubt over the actions of a British woman jailed in Iran.
The Environment Secretary was accused of bungling after saying he did not know what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing in the country, when a key part of her defence is that she was merely on holiday.
Mr Gove was defending Boris Johnson, who has been criticised for remarks that were seized on by Tehran to justify threats to extend her sentence. Iran’s state TV broadcaster claimed the Foreign Secretary’s suggestion Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “training journalists” at the time of her arrest last year amounted to an “unintended admission” of her guilt.
Asked what she was doing in Iran, Mr Gove told BBC One’s
The Andrew Marr Show: “I don’t know. One of the things I want to stress is there is no reason why Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should be in prison in Iran so far as any of us know.”
Mr Gove warned it would be a “big mistake” to focus attention on his Cabinet colleague when Iran is “in the dock”. He said: “There is an effort, somehow, to shift attention and direction away from who is really at fault her and it is the Iranian regime.”
“There is no reason for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention and she should be released,” he said.
“There is nothing the Iranian regime would like more than for the attention to be shifted off them and on to us”, Mr Gove said.
“I think we make a big mistake if we think the right thing to do is to blame politicians in a democracy who are trying to do the right thing for the plight of a women who has been imprisoned by a regime that is a serial abuser of human rights.”
Shadow Cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said Theresa May must ensure Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe “does not pay the price for her ministers’ bungling”.
“Boris Johnson’s cavalier approach to international diplomacy is compounded this morning by Michael Gove claiming he has no idea what Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe was doing in Iran. It has always been clear, she was on holiday visiting her family,” he said.
He added: “It appears Gove is more interested in protecting Johnson’s job than the liberty of a British citizen in jail in Iran.”
It has always been clear, she was on holiday visiting her family. Shadow Cabinet office minister Jon Trickett who said ministers were making matters worse.