Boris Johnson accused of giving 'false hope' to family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
3 min read
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been accused of giving "false hope" to the family of jailed British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Labour MP Tulip Siddiq said the Foreign Secretary gave the husband of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe "false hope" ahead of a visit to Iran last year.
The British-Iranian mother has been held in Tehran since April 2016 after she was accused of spying on a visit to the region.
Mr Johnson met with Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard and local MP Ms Siddiq ahead of a visit to Iran, which he promised he would use to plead for the release of the jailed mother-of-two.
But Mr Ratcliffe said that the process to free his wife now felt like a "standoff".
“I was pretty hopeful at Christmas, but then I though worst-case scenario it would be Nowruz – Iranian new year – which was two weeks ago," he said.
“So in my head, worst case was he she would be out by March, so now the fact is we’ve got to the second anniversary. We have a comedy event tomorrow which we had originally planned as a celebration. Now, we need cheering up.
“We’ve done a lot of campaigning, and now it feels like a standoff. And the wider mood music between Iran and the UK is taking a turn for the worse at the moment.”
The Foreign Secretary has been under pressure to speed up the release of Ms Naghari-Ratcliffe after he wrongly told MPs she had been in the country "teaching journalism" - a claim which may have lengthened her sentence.
Labour backbencher Ms Siddiq is now seeking a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the case.
“Boris Johnson has been to Iran and there have been no results. It’s been two years and I feel like the only way to get her out now is to escalate this even further,” she said.
“I feel so desperate as a local MP, because I really thought we would get her home by Christmas. I feel Richard was given false hope, especially after the Foreign Secretary made that grave error in front of the select committee, it felt like it was the most important issue for the Foreign Office once we sat down with Boris Johnson, he said no stone will be left unturned.”
Mr Ratcliffe added: “We felt there were clearly lots of signs for hope and it just didn’t happen.
“The head of the prison said he’d approved her release many months ago. Then we thought she might get furlough – holiday from prison at her mum and dad’s house – then that transformed to house arrest with Gabriella, with guards outside, which sounded just awful.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “On the second anniversary of Nazanin’s arrest we continue to approach her case, and all of our British-Iranian consular cases, in a way they we judge is most likely to secure the outcome we all want. Therefore we will not be providing a running commentary on every twist and turn.”
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