{"id":1191,"date":"2017-12-21T16:48:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T16:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2017-12-23T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-23T17:00:09","slug":"iranian-british-citizen-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-eligible-for-early-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1191","title":{"rendered":"Iranian-British Citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Eligible for Early Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 21, 2017\u2013The husband of\u00a0Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe\u00a0has stated that the Iranian-British\u00a0dual national, who is currently serving a five-year sentence in Tehran\u2019s Evin Prison, is now eligible for \u201cearly release\u201d and that her lawyer was \u201chopeful\u201d when he visited her on December 20, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe told her that it\u2019s a matter of finalizing paperwork and it might be days to weeks rather than tomorrow morning,\u201d Richard Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 5\u00a0on December 21.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe\u2019s release is long overdue,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards and judiciary should have never colluded to imprison Zaghari-Ratcliffe in the first place,\u201d he added. \u201cReleasing her now is the least the judiciary can do to put an end to the unjust and cruel treatment of this dual national.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

CHRI has\u00a0urged Iran<\/a>\u00a0to respect its domestic and international obligations by allowing prisoners access to basic rights and due process, which Zaghari-Ratcliffe was\u00a0repeatedly denied.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ratcliffe told the BBC that he felt there was a \u201cchange of the tide\u201d since Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson traveled to Iran in early December to discuss Zaghari-Ratcliffe\u2019s case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now suddenly the database is shifting and saying eligible for early release,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tulip Siddiq, a member of Parliament representing Hampstead and Kilburn where Zaghari-Ratcliffe lives in London, said in a statement on December 21 that the news \u201cis a glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel for my constituents Richard, Nazanin, and Gabriella.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s daughter, three-year-old Gabriella Ratcliffe, has been living in Tehran with her grandparents since the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) arrested Zaghari-Ratcliffe on her way back home to London from Tehran in April 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt has given Nazanin a real boost of positive energy, and now we wait impatiently to see what happens next,\u201d said Siddiq.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Although we do not want to celebrate prematurely, it would be the perfect Christmas gift to see Nazanin released and back with her family where she belongs,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n

A researcher for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 while waiting for a flight back home with her two-year-old daughter after visiting family. She is serving a five-year prison sentence on unspecified espionage charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zaghari-Ratcliffe became eligible for early release according to Iranian law in November 2017, however, at the time she was told she could face additional years in prison for\u00a0new charges<\/a>\u00a0that appear to have never been brought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s state-run\u00a0Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting\u00a0(IRIB) recently ran a\u00a0smear campaign\u00a0on Zaghari-Ratcliffe, accusing her of spying for the British government.<\/span><\/p>\n

IRIB has repeatedly colluded with Iran\u2019s judiciary and security forces, including the IRGC, to convince the Iranian public that defendants held in politically motivated cases are guilty of committing crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The state-run news service also\u00a0broadcasts forced confessions\u00a0by detainees, in clear violation of international provisions on fair trials and the right to due process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Judicial officials misrepresented Zaghari-Ratcliffe\u2019s past jobs and her British citizenship to persuade the UK government to negotiate with the Iranian government for her release, Ratcliffe\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0CHRI in October 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe [the Tehran prosecutor] emphasized that she has a British husband, that she is British-Iranian and worked for the BBC\u2014that big British institution\u2014and kind of suggested that the British government needs to do something,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ratcliffe said both governments are responsible for upholding the rights of their citizen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe British government needs to protect its citizens and the Iranian government needs to protect its citizens from being used as bargaining chips,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For interviews, contact:<\/span>
\n Hadi Ghaemi<\/span>
\n +1-917-669-5996<\/span>
\n hadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Visit our website:\u00a0www.iranhumanrights.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 21, 2017\u2013The husband of\u00a0Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe\u00a0has stated that the Iranian-British\u00a0dual national, who is currently serving a five-year sentence in Tehran\u2019s Evin Prison, is now eligible for \u201cearly release\u201d and that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[263],"class_list":["post-1191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1192,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions\/1192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}