Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual citizen imprisoned in Iran, has announced she will commence a three-day hunger strike on 14 January
Held at Evin prison in Tehran, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow inmate Narges Mohammadi will refuse all food for 72 hours after the former was denied medical care, officials rejecting her request for a doctor to examine lumps on her breasts and treat neck pain and numbness in her arms and legs.
Husband Richard Ratcliffe has called for an urgent meeting with the Iranian ambassador to London.
Iran sentenced Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe to five years in prison in September 2016 after accusing her of “plotting to topple the Iranian regime”.
A project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency, she had visited the country to spend time with family members for Nowruz (New Year) on 17 March 2016 but was detained on her way home to the UK at Imam Khomeini Airport on 3 April.
Her 22-month-old daughter, Gabriella, was left to the care of her maternal grandparents, resident in Iran.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe stands accused of running “a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran”, according to the country’s prosecutor-general, speaking in Tehran in October 2017.
The allegation relates to her previous role working for the BBC World Service Trust, now rechristened BBC Media Action, between February 2009 and October 2010, contributing to a course undertaken by several employees of an Iran technology news website, for which they were subsequently imprisoned.
The BBC has denied the charge and said her imprisonment was based on a false premise anyway, as her role within the organisation had been that of a junior administrative assistant.
The Iranian government has never disclosed the precise nature of the crimes Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe is thought to have committed, although it insists she has been detained on legitimate grounds.
Richard Ratcliffe has sought to raise awareness of her plight from Britain, launching an online petition calling on prime minister Theresa May and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei to free her.
“Nazanin is not being held for anything she has personally done. It is deeply misleading by both governments to suggest or even half imply otherwise,” he has said.
“We demand a clear statement from the foreign secretary to correct his mistake – in parliament and in Tehran at the earliest opportunity.”
What he got instead was a highly unhelpful intervention from then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who was was widely criticised for muddying the waters.
“When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it,” Mr Johnson told a foreign affairs committee on 1 November 2017.
“Neither Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”
The careless statement that she was “teaching people journalism” reinforced the Islamic Republic’s stance and was roundly criticised by the likes of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and London mayor Sadiq Khan, and led to calls for Mr Johnson to resign.
Mr Johnson has since been replaced as foreign secretary while Mr Ratcliffe has alleged that his wife’s freedom hinges on the interest rate accumulated on a £450m loan the UK still owes Tehran over a cancelled arms deal in the 1970s, a charge the Foreign Office has vehemently denied.
He has also regularly raised concerns about her welfare in prison, amid concerns she could suffer a nervous breakdown and might have been tortured.
In April 2018, a charity comedy night was staged to raise funds to support the campaign for her release, hosted by Shappi Khorsandi and featuring Al Murray, Mark Steel and Sara Pascoe.
In August, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken to a prison clinic after suffering a panic attack just days after being temporarily released to see her family.
On Boxing Day, she spent her 40th birthday in prison, again briefly reunited with Gabriella.
