Enlarge image
Nazanin Zaghari-Racliffe with daughter Gabriella 2016
Photo: HANDOUT / AFP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has not seen her husband for five and a half years and her daughter since 2019.
There was great hope that she could come back to them in London this year.
But the British-Iranian journalist is currently waiting for the call that she has to go back to prison.
Because her lawyer failed to appeal against renewed charges.
The British-Iranian dual state woman has already spent four years in an Iranian prison, several months of which in solitary confinement.
Due to the corona pandemic, she was able to spend her last year in house arrest with her parents.
She was released in March but was not allowed to leave the country.
Shortly afterwards, she was charged again and sentenced to another year in prison.
The thought of prison is traumatic
The very thought of going back to prison traumatized his wife, Richard Ratcliffe told the BBC.
She called her daughter Gabriella several times to tell her that she loved her.
"So much is she afraid that her return to prison is imminent," says Ratcliffe, who from the UK is vehemently advocating her release.
The case has been causing a dispute between Tehran and London for years. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Journalists' Foundation, was arrested in 2016 after visiting her parents in southern Iran. The now 42-year-old was accused of espionage, among other things. She is said to have tried to overthrow the regime in Iran with a foreign network, so the allegation. Although the British woman vehemently denied all charges against her, she was convicted by a revolutionary court.
The British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has now called for an end to the prosecution against Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
"Iran's decision to uphold the baseless allegations against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is completely unacceptable," Truss wrote on Twitter on Saturday evening.
You must be released permanently, demanded the minister.
"I'll do everything I can to help Nazanin and her family."
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's attorney had previously confirmed that the one-year sentence against her had been upheld by an appeals court.
However, he will appeal this decision again, Hodschat Kermani told the Emtedad news portal on Saturday.
The new conviction relates to alleged participation in a demonstration twelve years ago and an interview she gave to the BBC's Persian-language edition.
It is unclear why the new allegations were only negotiated now and not in the 2016 process.
Human rights groups criticize that dual nationals like Zaghari-Ratcliffe are also used by Iran as bargaining chips.
Supporters assume that the 42-year-old Iran is serving as leverage in the legal dispute over the repayment of 400 million pounds that Britain owes Tehran.
Tehran denies that.
kry / AFP / dpa
