On Thursday, the British government asked Iran to release its detainees, but the husband of British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says his personal encounter with the Foreign Office offered him "no optimism."
British officials met with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani in London on Thursday to discuss the landmark nuclear deal ahead of a seventh round of talks in Vienna on Nov. 29.
Bagheri Kani was "again urged on the need for Iran to promptly free those British nationals unfairly held in Iran, notably Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori, and Morad Tahbaz," according to a statement released by the UK Foreign Office following the meeting.
In April 2016, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained at Tehran's airport while returning to the UK following a family holiday. Following a sham trial, she was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government after being confined in solitary confinement for more than eight months.
The dual national, who worked as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, refutes the allegations, claiming she went to Iran with her 22-month-old daughter to see her relatives.
As the coronavirus began to spread through Iran's jails in 2020, she was released and put under home arrest.
However, after serving her five-year sentence, an Iranian court sentenced Zaghari-Ratcliffe to another year in prison in April for "spreading propaganda," an accusation based on her participation in a 2009 demonstration outside Iran's embassy in London, as well as an interview she gave to BBC Persian.
Ratcliffe, her husband, began a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office offices in London over three weeks ago in an attempt to draw attention to his wife's case.
Ratcliffe, who has been sleeping in a tent near the building's main entrance, met with Middle East Minister James Cleverly of the Foreign Office on Thursday.
On the 19th day of his hunger strike, Ratcliffe informed reporters, "I came away with no hope." "To tell you the truth, that was a gloomy encounter." Well, not much in terms of what we were taught."
According to Zaghari-family, Ratcliffe's arrest is linked to a decades-old debt owing to Iran by the United Kingdom over Chieftain tanks that were paid in full by the former shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The deal was cancelled after he was deposed in 1979, but the money was not repaid.
"When we inquired about the debt, they remained completely silent, as if they didn't want to talk about it at all. 'Our stance is widely known,' [cleverly] said, and we said, 'Well, look, frankly, it isn't well known,' "Ratcliffe stated.
Iran also holds Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired British-Iranian engineer, and Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist with British, American, and Iranian citizenship, in addition to Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Follow the latest news on Google News
