The husband of a British-Iranian woman detained by Iranian justice since 2016 announced Saturday to end his hunger strike started 21 days ago to alert on his fate, explaining that their daughter Gabriella "
needed both parents
" .
“
Today I promised Nazanin to end the hunger strike,
” Richard Ratcliffe said in a tweet, referring to his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“
Gabriella needs two parents,
” he added, thanking her support for their “
overwhelming attentions over the past three weeks
”.
Read alsoThe husband of Iranian-British Zaghari-Ratcliffe can not continue his hunger strike "much longer"
This tweet was accompanied by a photo showing him visibly tired, standing outside the Foreign Office in London, where he has led his protest action in recent weeks.
Richard Ratcliffe explained in a message posted on the same social network that he would go to the hospital in the afternoon to carry out a “
complete assessment
” of his state of health.
Project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the news agency of the same name, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 in Tehran, where she came to visit her family.
She had been accused of conspiring to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which she fiercely denies, and sentenced to five years in prison.
After serving her sentence, she was sentenced again at the end of April to one year in prison for participating in a rally outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009.
In mid-October, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe lost her appeal, causing her relatives to fear an imminent return to prison, from where she had been authorized to leave with an electronic bracelet in March 2020, because of the Covid-19.
Richard Ratcliffe estimates that his wife finds herself held hostage because of an old debt of 400 million pounds (467 million euros), which London refuses to settle since the ousting of the Shah from Iran in 1979.
To read also Arrived at the end of his sentence, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe again summoned by the Iranian justice
Thursday a delegation led by senior Iranian diplomat Ali Bagheri Kani visited the Foreign Office in London.
Richard Ratcliffe found the subsequent report to him "
quite depressing
".
“
I don't think a clear enough message has been sent that it is wrong to take hostages.
I don't think Iran will suffer any consequences for continuing to hold British citizens hostage
, ”he said.
Tulip Siddiq, MP representing the London constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn where Richard Ratcliffe lives, indicated on Twitter on Friday that he had obtained a debate on Tuesday in Parliament on the situation of his wife.
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