Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: What is Iran jail case about?
11 October 2019
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained at an Iranian airport in April 2016, while travelling home to London with her young daughter. The British-Iranian charity worker has since been sentenced to five years in prison - for allegedly plotting against the Iranian government. She maintains her innocence, saying she was on holiday in Iran visiting family. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, has dual British and Iranian citizenship, and before her arrest lived in London with accountant husband Richard Ratcliffe. She worked as a project manager for the charity Thomson Reuters Foundation and was previously employed by BBC Media Action, an international development charity. She says she took her daughter Gabriella, now five, to Iran in March 2016 to celebrate the country's new year and visit her parents. Iranian authorities allege Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was plotting to topple the government in Tehran - but no official charges have been made public. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said she was leading a "foreign-linked hostile network" when she visited. Both the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action issued statements saying she was not working in Iran but was on holiday there. Mr Ratcliffe said he had asked his wife what the charges were during a phone call in 2016, and a nearby prison guard had said: "National security charges". Then-Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK Foreign Office raised concerns after Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's arrest, but Iran refuses to recognise dual nationals and denies them access to consular assistance. In November 2017, then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had to apologise after he was criticised for suggesting Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists. Mr Johnson visited Tehran and met his counterpart as well as President Hassan Rouhani, and pressed for her release on humanitarian grounds the following month. In March 2019, Jeremy Hunt - Mr Johnson's successor - announced Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be given diplomatic protection -  making the case a formal, legal dispute between Britain and Iran. After becoming prime minister, Mr Johnson called for her immediate release during a meeting with Mr Rouhani. Current Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab reiterated the call after daughter Gabriella returned to the UK. - April-June 2016: Mr Ratcliffe said his wife was subject to "intense interrogation" for the first two months of her imprisonment and kept in solitary confinement - September 2016: Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran's Revolutionary Court - April 2017: Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe lost a final appeal in Iran's supreme court to overturn her sentence - August 2018: She was reunited with her daughter while on a temporary three-day release - January 2019: Mr Ratcliffe said his wife started a three-day hunger strike to protest about a lack of specialist medical treatment - June 2019: Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe undertook a 15-day hunger strike, calling for her unconditional release - October 2019: Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's daughter Gabriella returned to the UK to start school Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who maintains her innocence, mostly speaks publicly through her husband, who regularly calls her in prison. According to Mr Ratcliffe, she says she misses Gabriella "all the time" and is in a "pretty fragile" state of mental health. She told her husband and supporters over the phone during a rally in London: "It has been really difficult for me to be in prison." However, in August her husband said new rules meant she was no longer able to make international calls to him in London. In an open letter, published in October, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said weekly visits from her daughter had sustained her during her imprisonment. Writing before Gabriella returned to the UK to start school, she said the thought of being unable to hold her child was "the deepest torture of them all". Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's five-year-sentence was handed down on 6 September - one day after the UK appointed an ambassador to Iran for the first time since 2011. Mr Ratcliffe said the timing was proof his wife is being held as a political bargaining chip. BBC diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley said London and Tehran do not see eye-to-eye on Iran's role in the wider Middle East or on human rights. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are hardliners, opposed to Iran's nuclear deal struck by moderates with the West in 2015. And in 2009, Britain was accused of fuelling unprecedented street protests.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, has dual British and Iranian citizenship, and before her arrest lived in London with accountant husband Richard Ratcliffe. She worked as a project manager for the charity Thomson Reuters Foundation and was previously employed by BBC Media Action, an international development charity. She says she took her daughter Gabriella, now five, to Iran in March 2016 to celebrate the country's new year and visit her parents.
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Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
Iranian authorities allege Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was plotting to topple the government in Tehran - but no official charges have been made public. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said she was leading a "foreign-linked hostile network" when she visited. Both the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action issued statements saying she was not working in Iran but was on holiday there. Mr Ratcliffe said he had asked his wife what the charges were during a phone call in 2016, and a nearby prison guard had said: "National security charges".
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What is she accused of?
Then-Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK Foreign Office raised concerns after Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's arrest, but Iran refuses to recognise dual nationals and denies them access to consular assistance. In November 2017, then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had to apologise after he was criticised for suggesting Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists. Mr Johnson visited Tehran and met his counterpart as well as President Hassan Rouhani, and pressed for her release on humanitarian grounds the following month. In March 2019, Jeremy Hunt - Mr Johnson's successor - announced Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be given diplomatic protection -  making the case a formal, legal dispute between Britain and Iran. After becoming prime minister, Mr Johnson called for her immediate release during a meeting with Mr Rouhani. Current Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab reiterated the call after daughter Gabriella returned to the UK.
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What has the UK government done?
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who maintains her innocence, mostly speaks publicly through her husband, who regularly calls her in prison. According to Mr Ratcliffe, she says she misses Gabriella "all the time" and is in a "pretty fragile" state of mental health. She told her husband and supporters over the phone during a rally in London: "It has been really difficult for me to be in prison." However, in August her husband said new rules meant she was no longer able to make international calls to him in London. In an open letter, published in October, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said weekly visits from her daughter had sustained her during her imprisonment. Writing before Gabriella returned to the UK to start school, she said the thought of being unable to hold her child was "the deepest torture of them all".
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What has Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said?
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's five-year-sentence was handed down on 6 September - one day after the UK appointed an ambassador to Iran for the first time since 2011. Mr Ratcliffe said the timing was proof his wife is being held as a political bargaining chip. BBC diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley said London and Tehran do not see eye-to-eye on Iran's role in the wider Middle East or on human rights. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are hardliners, opposed to Iran's nuclear deal struck by moderates with the West in 2015. And in 2009, Britain was accused of fuelling unprecedented street protests.
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What are the politics behind her case?