Iran: Husband of jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe calls British government 'negligent'
As Richard Ratcliffe enters his 20th day of a hunger strike outside the British Foreign Office, he accuses the government of “gaslighting” him as he campaigns for the release of his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran since 2016.
Ratcliffe went on hunger strike on 24 October, to highlight the British government’s inaction over his wife’s continued detention in Iran.
“The Foreign Office is very good at gaslighting," he told Middle East Eye. "It’s very good at claiming it’s doing things that it isn’t. I think it’s perfectly clear after five and a half years that their approach is unsuccessful.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, was arrested in 2016 as she was leaving Iran after taking her then 22-month-old daughter to visit her family.
“The reason [for the hunger strike] was twofold," Ratcliffe said. "One, because the British government wasn’t willing to do anything to challenge Iran’s actions; and two, because the whole approach to getting her home has been a spectacular failure, and I felt they needed to be reminded.
“We’re caught in a fight between two states, both culpable. So I’ve ended up now, sitting on the pavement in front of the Foreign Office on a hunger strike.”
Ratcliffe explains that in the short term, the hunger strike has generated further interest in his wife’s case and the UK’s role in her capture. The payment of a British debt of £400m to Iran, which dates back to an arms deal in the 1970s, is a precondition for her release, and has led to devastating consequences for other families of detainees in Iran, too.
“There’s a network of hostage families that will talk and share experiences. We’re probably one of the highest-profile and most assertive in calling out our government’s failures,” Ratcliffe said. “Others are more cautious, but there’s a lot of support behind closed doors.”
Among the high-profile dual citizens detained in Iran are Anoosheh Ashoori, who has been held at the notorious Evin prison in Tehran for four years on disputed spying charges, and Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist who also holds US citizenship. Tahbaz was detained in January 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, for the alleged crime of collecting classified information on Iran’s strategic areas.
The growing interest in Ratcliffe's hunger strike followed talks between UK government officials and Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Bagheri Kani on Thursday, which Ratcliffe said would not have happened if he wasn’t out on the pavement.
“I think the British government is negligent in its attempts to protect British citizens. I think citizenship in the UK ends at the border. When you go abroad, you just become subjects,” Ratcliffe said.
The former Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier this week that practicalities were holding the UK back from paying off its £400m debt to Iran.
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