David
Ibsen, Executive Director of United Against a Nuclear Iran
(UANI), has strongly condemned the Islamic Republic’s treatment
of British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,
describing today’s decision adjourn her retrial as “politically
motivated, callous and entirely in-keeping with the character of
the regime”.
The
Islamic Republic has never attempted to hide the fact that Ms
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention is intrinsically linked to its
demand that the UK government pay an historic £400mn debt that
Tehran believes it is owed. With Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe appearance
in court today coming just days after British courts delayed by
six months hearings relating to the same debt dispute, the
message from Tehran is clear.
First
detained in 2016, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has already served the
majority of a five-year sentence for “plotting to topple the
Iranian government”, risible charges that are widely acknowledged
as baseless by the international community.
For
the duration of her sentence, no British official has been
permitted to visit Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe despite repeated requests
and a grant of diplomatic protection, which elevated
her case from a consular affair to a formal dispute between
states.
Due
to an uncontrolled outbreak of Covid-19 in Iran’s prison system,
for the past several months Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been
permitted to live under house arrest in her parents’ home.
However, hopes that she would not be forced to return to Iran’s
deplorable prison system and would be released upon the expiry of
her original prison sentence were severely dented by last week’s
announcement that she would face a retrial.
David
Ibsen said:
“UANI
extends its sympathies to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her
family and supports Richard Ratcliffe’s continued work
campaigning for her release.
Today’s
decision to defer proceedings prolongs the suffering of Ms.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family. Meanwhile, Nazanin faces the
prospect of protracted incarceration in a prison system already
notorious for its poor conditions and now overrun by Covid-19
infections.
Like
many dual and foreign citizens languishing in the Iranian prison
system on ginned-up charges, Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being used
as a political pawn in a diplomatic dispute to which she bears no
relation other than the accident of her dual
nationality.
Since
its inception, the Islamic Republic has time and again trampled
over the rights of dual-nationals such as Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe
in order to gain diplomatic leverage. Although a tragic
injustice, this latest development is therefore of little
surprise.
Having
exhausted all standard diplomatic channels in order to secure the
release of, or even access to, Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the UK
government must now consider whether it sees fit to concede to
Iran’s bullyboy tactics and pay a questionable debt, or stand up
to a regime which cares as little for diplomatic norms as it does
for the trappings of justice.
Notes to the editor:
https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/is
a not-for-profit, transatlantic advocacy group founded in 2008
that seeks to heighten awareness of the danger the Iranian regime
poses to the world.
It
is led by an Advisory Board of outstanding figures representing
all sectors of the US and EU, including former Ambassador to the
UN Mark D. Wallace, Middle East expert Ambassador Dennis Ross,
and former Head of the UK’s MI6 Sir Richard
Dearlove.
UANI
works to ensure the economic and diplomatic isolation of the
Iranian regime in order to compel Iran to abandon its illegal
nuclear weapons programme, support for terrorism and human rights
violations.
