The release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been delayed after threats of further charges in Iran this week.
Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was given a five-year prison sentence in 2016 on unspecified charges relating to national security, was expected to be released on the 7 March 2021. But despite the recent removal of her ankle tag following a year-long house arrest, the dual national is expected to be summoned to court on Sunday to face new charges.
A No 10 spokesperson said, “[Mr Johnson] said that while the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle monitor was welcome, her continued confinement remains completely unacceptable and she must be allowed to return to her family in the UK.”
The news of fresh charges comes after a 77-page report sent to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Thursday, concluding that Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “in urgent need of psychiatric pharmacological and psychotherapeutic support.”
The report, commissioned by anti-torture campaign group Redress, was based on a virtual medical evaluation carried out by Independent Forensic Expert Group (IFEG) doctors last year while Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was still under house arrest.
In the report, the British-Iranian dual citizen explains how she spent multiple periods in solitary confinement and was subject to regular interrogations either blindfolded or handcuffed.
She claims she was denied medical check-ups after she found lumps on her breasts and taunted by a female guard with the presence of her own young daughter outside her cell door.
Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe has not seen her now six-year-old daughter, Gabriella, since she was temporarily reunited with her on a three-day release from prison in 2018.
In a letter sent by IFEG, the examiners concluded that “the physical and psychological findings are highly consistent with Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s allegations of torture and ill-treatment.”
Director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen said: “This won’t be over until Nazanin has her passport and is on a flight heading home to the UK” and urged the government to take “serious diplomatic action”.
Mr. Ratcliffe has previously argued how he believes his wife, and other dual nationals, are being used as a bargaining chip over a decades-old arms debt to Iran.
“The Revolutionary Guard have been completely consistent over the past five years – that they arrested Nazanin as leverage for the tank debt,” says Mr. Ratcliffe.
“The family have never seen a copy of the charges on which she was sentenced. There is no written documentation or anything.”
The Foreign Office however, have argued that dual British-Iranian nationals are being “arbitrarily detained” by the Iranian government: “We do not accept Iran detaining dual nationals as diplomatic leverage.”
Now, with Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sentence complete, she is still unable to return home. So, would Britain acknowledging and paying the debt change her outcome?
Millie Lockhart
Featured image courtesy of Snapperjack on Flickr. Image license can be found here. No changes were made to this image.