The British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail sentence in Iran has formally put in a request to meet Boris Johnson after the foreign secretary was forced to clarify remarks he made about her imprisonment.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe wanted to see the foreign secretary, according to her husband, who also said the family were frustrated that they had not been able to meet Johnson since their ordeal began 18 months ago.
Johnson made a statement to parliament on Tuesday afternoon after suggesting last week that Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, had been training journalists in Iran, though her family have said she was there on holiday with her young daughter.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Boris Johnson said that the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, convicted of spying in Iran, was “simply teaching people journalism” – a statement her family and her employer both said was untrue. His comments were subsequently cited as proof that she was engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.
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Campaigners for Zaghari-Ratcliffe said his comments could result in her jail term being extended. The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, and a series of other MPs called on Johnson to resign.
Richard Ratcliffe said he was unhappy with the government for not giving his wife’s case priority despite signs that she was being held in Tehran as a political prisoner. He said he hoped Johnson would meet her and judicial officials in the country.
“We’ve never met [Johnson],” Richard Ratcliffe told the Guardian. “We’ve long had that as a request to meet with the foreign secretary and for instance, last week Tulip Siddiq [the family’s MP] met with him and I wasn’t allowed to attend, it was only the MPs.”
Shortly after Johnson’s comments, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was returned to court, with his words cited as evidence against her. On Sunday, the Iranian judiciary’s human rights council said on its website that Johnson’s statement “has shed new light on the realities about Nazanin, which has been strongly denied previously by both her family and human rights activists”.
Johnson spoke to his his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, about the case earlier on Tuesday.
Ratcliffe said he was pleased the talks had happened but that it was more important for the foreign secretary to meet his wife.
“It’s useful that he raised Nazanin’s case with Foreign Minister Zarif but he has done that before, and you know ultimately there are limits to what the foreign ministry can achieve – talking to the [Iranian] judiciary is more effective than talking to the foreign ministry,” Ratcliffe said.
Johnson told the Commons that Zarif “told me that any recent developments in the case had no link to my testimony last week”, and insisted his remarks had been misunderstood.
“The UK government has no doubt that she was on holiday in Iran when she was arrested last year, and that was the sole purpose of her visit,” he said in a statement.
“My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been engaged in such activity.
“I accept that my remarks could have been clearer in that respect and I’m glad to provide that clarification.”
Thornberry called on Johnson to apologise to the family, and said the foreign secretary had become a liability.
“We are all bound to ask: how many more times does this need to happen? How many more times does the foreign secretary have to insult our international partners, damage our diplomatic relations, and now imperil the interests of British nationals abroad?
“What will it take before the prime minister says: enough is enough? But if the truth is that she can’t, because she hasn’t got the strength or authority to sack him, how about the foreign secretary himself shows a bit of personal responsibility and admits that a job like this, where your words hold gravity and your actions have consequences, it is simply not the job for him.”
After a series of other MPs also called for Johnson to apologise he eventually did so, albeit with many caveats.
“Of course, I am sorry if any words of mine have been so taken out of context, so misconstrued, as to cause any kind of anxiety for the family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,” he said.
Theresa May’s spokesman later insisted the prime minister backed Johnson, and rejected the idea that he should have apologised for his initial statement.
“What was important, and which has been welcomed, was for the foreign secretary to be absolutely clear that Miss Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on holiday in Iran when she was arrested and that that was the sole purpose of her visit.”
He added: “Clarity is important; that clarity has been provided.”
Asked if the prime minister continued to have confidence in Johnson, he said: “The foreign secretary is doing a good job in working to promote Britain’s interests.”
Ratcliffe said he had met the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, and his predecessor Tobias Ellwood, but his wife’s case had always been treated as a consular case and he had not been able to meet Johnson or the prime minister.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said Zarif promised Johnson that he would talk to Iranian judges about the case but made clear that the Iranian judiciary acted independently of the government. Zarif also told Johnson that, according to Iranian law, Zaghari-Ratcliffe would not be treated as dual national.
Monique Villa, the chief executive of Thomson Reuters Foundation, where Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked as a project manager, also said she had not been able to meet the foreign secretary since Zaghari-Ratcliffe was jailed in April 2016.
Siddiq confirmed that the Foreign Office had turned down her request for Richard Ratcliffe to attend her meeting with Johnson. “Richard lives in West Hampstead, which is a lot closer to Westminster, and he has not met him,” Siddiq said. “I hope now that the foreign secretary finally calls for her release, which he has not yet done.”
Villa said it would be “useful for him to finally meet with Nazanin’s family, and myself, to fully appreciate the situation”.
Villa said Zaghari-Ratcliffe had never trained journalists in Iran “and we are pleased that [Johnson] has admitted to the Iranian foreign minister that she was in Iran purely on holiday”.
Johnson had told the foreign affairs select committee last week that he believed Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it”. He said neither she nor her family had been told what crime she had committed. “And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”
Her family say she was in Iran on a family holiday with her now-three-year-old daughter, who is still in Iran being cared for by grandparents while her mother serves her jail term after being convicted of spying.
