Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld the five-year prison sentence imposed on Anglo-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The Supreme Court, which held no hearing, informed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyer of the decision on April 18 and told him there were no further legal avenues the family could pursue. The attorney then discussed the matter with the charity worker during a prison visit over the weekend.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for Thomson Reuters Foundation, asked her family and the Free Nazanin campaign to announce the denial of her appeal.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested on April 3, 2016, as she and her 22-month-old daughter Gabriella were about to board a flight back to the UK, following a family visit. Her sentence was announced in September. Throughout her imprisonment, she has only been allowed to see her lawyer on two occasions.
No detailed charges or evidence have ever been produced to indicate why the dual national was detained. However, she used to work for the BBC international charitable project Media Action, which provided a training course for Iranian journalists who were punished on their return to the Islamic Republic.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard Ratcliffe has asked the UK Government to publicly call for her release, and to issue a statement rejecting allegations in the Iranian media that she is a spy. Zaghari-Ratcliffe has asked for the British ambassador to visit her in prison, and said she will write to UK Prime Minister Theresa May.
Richard Ratcliffe said in a statement:
For Nazanin, for all the other British Iranians watching and seeing how their government stands up for them is important. It does no good to UK-Iranian relations, or to those who might be thinking about going to Iran on holiday, or even doing business as the government is keen to promote, to know that this could happen to anyone. The government should be clear that this is not the way.
Gabriella Ratcliffe, whose passport was confiscated when her mother was arrested, is still with her grandmother in Tehran. The UK has offered to issue temporary travel documents and have embassy personnel ferry Gabriella home, but her prison visits are the sole relief for the detainee.
According to Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a prison interrogator said she would have to agree to have Gabriella move to the prison for three nights a week or waive all rights to see her.
TOP PHOTO: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with husband Richard and daughter Gabriella before the charity worker’s imprisonment in April 2016
