‘I should have been freed six years ago’

Six years’ delay… At her first press conference, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said that five foreign secretaries failed to secure the release of one person…reports Asian Lite News

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle welcomed  Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to the Palace of West Minister. She attended a press conference later and accused the governments of failure to secure freedom for a private citizen.

Nazanin has said that it should never have taken the government so long to secure her release.

“What’s happened now should have happened six years ago. I shouldn’t have been in prison for six years,” she added.

She was accompanied by husband Richard Ratcliffe, daughter Gabrielle and her constituency MP Tulip Siddiq.

Nazanin was speaking for the first time since her dramatic return to the UK last week. She was freed after spending six years of detention by Iran. Some media reports said the British government has paid £380 million to secure her release. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the UK has settled a legitimate debt with Iran.

“I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years,” said Nazanin.  “How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? We all know… how I came home. It should have happened exactly six years ago.”

She also said she had been told by Iranian authorities shortly after her arrest that they wanted “something off the Brits” and that they would not let her go until they had got it.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said: “I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete as to such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families.

“To begin with Morad, but also the other dual nationals, members of religious groups, or prisoners of conscience who are, I mean, we do realise that if I have been in prison for six years there are so many other people – we don’t know their names – who have been suffering in prison in Iran.

“Justice in Iran does not have any meaning.”

She said she was “very grateful to whoever has been involved in getting us home” and highlighted the work of her lawyer in Iran who had been “fearlessly fighting” for her release.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained while visiting her parents in Iran in April 2016 and accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. She was given a five-year sentence in September 2016 and in April of last year was given another year on charges of propaganda against the government.

She has always denied the charges against her. Another British-Iranian national, Anoosheh Ashoori, was released at the same time as Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Morad Tahbaz, who has British, Iranian, and American citizenship, remains in detention.

Roxanne Tahbaz, the eldest daughter of Mr Tahbaz, was also attended the press conference.

She said the family felt he and her mother, who had been put on a travel ban in Iran, had been “abandoned”.

In a direct message to Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, she said: “We beg you to please stand by your word and bring back both of my parents”.

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