The British Foreign Office announced that the government summoned the Iranian ambassador on Thursday, following news that imprisoned British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is to be recalled to court in Iran.
The British authorities expressed their grave concern to diplomat Hamid Baeidinejad, and called on Iran to end what it described as the arbitrary detention of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, according to Reuters.
"We have made it clear to the Iranian ambassador that his country's treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is unjustified and unacceptable, and is causing an enormous amount of distress," the Foreign Office said in a statement.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at an airport in the Iranian capital Tehran as she was preparing to return to Britain with her daughter after a family visit.
She was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the Iranian religious establishment.
Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the accusation.
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