Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released from an Iranian prison and is travelling back to her family in the UK after six years of detention.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds British and Iranian citizenship, was arrested on a visit to Iran in 2016, and held there on charges of conspiracy against the Iranian government. She had her British passport unexpectedly returned this week, and today boarded a flight along with Anoosheh Ashoori, another dual-national detainee.
The British government has tried to negotiate their release for several years, and confirmed that it had paid a £400 million debt to the Iranian government from the 1970s – despite previously denying that the issue was connected to the release of dual nationals.
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said that the debt that the debt had been settled “in full compliance with UK and international sanctions”.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be reunited with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who last October went on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office to appeal for her release, and her seven-year-old daughter. “It’s going to be the beginning of a new life,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
In 2016 Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was accused by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of leading a “foreign-linked hostile network”, despite confirmation by her employers that she had been in Iran on holiday.
Thomson Reuters welcomed the news of her release, describing it as “a ray of light and hope” while remembering “all those who remain unfairly incarcerated in Tehran”.
The charity Article 18, which defends the rights of Christians in Iran, also welcomed the news while highlighting the many other prisoners of conscience in the country.
Mansour Borji, a director at the charity, told The Tablet: “It’s great that we are celebrating the release of Nazanin and Anoosheh, but we should not forget those who are still in prison facing similar treatment, which amounts to torture, by the Iranian government.”
He pointed to Iran’s laws on apostasy, which continue to endanger the lives of the country's many converts, and restrict their freedom to worship, in contradiction of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Iran is a signatory.
He said that any economic or diplomatic incentives offered to Iran should be “conditional on continuous improvement”.
Article 18 lists than 100 Christians arrested or detained in Iran since 2012, including the cellmate of Mr Ashoori.
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