Skip to main content

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Boris Johnson to meet husband



Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is to meet the husband of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran later.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held by Tehran since April 2016 after being accused of spying - charges she denies.
The meeting comes after the foreign secretary said during a Commons committee hearing she was there to train journalists - which could lead to her five-year jail term being doubled.
Her family have always maintained she was on holiday with her daughter.
Mr Johnson has apologised for the "distress" and "suffering" he had caused with the comments he made at the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee on 1 November, and retracted "any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity".
Some critics called for Mr Johnson to resign, but Richard Ratcliffe said it would not be in his wife's interests.
A Foreign Office statement said the pair will meet to discuss Mr Ratcliffe's request to give his wife "diplomatic protection" - which, under international law, allows a state to take diplomatic action on behalf of a national.
They will also talk about a possible joint trip to Iran before the end of the year and the health of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is said to have found lumps in her breasts.
Consular officials will be at the meeting, along with Middle East minister Alistair Burt, who has already met Mr Ratcliffe and visited Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family in Tehran.
Mr Ratcliffe welcomed the opportunity to meet Mr Johnson in person, having only spoken to him over the phone.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday, he said: "I think the best chance Nazanin has of coming home this side of Christmas is all of the weight of the Foreign Office and the foreign secretary being focused on doing that."
A statement from the Foreign Office said that Mr Johnson had "made it clear that no stone should be left unturned" in securing the release of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
"The Foreign Office remains very concerned about all our dual nationals detained in Iran and is doing everything it can in each of their cases, including trying to secure access to them and ensure their welfare," it added.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NIGERIA COOKING RECIPES How to make Chicken Pie Check Out: How to Make Chicken Pie [Video] How to Make Nigerian Meat Pie This Chicken Pie recipe was born out of my craving for Chicken Republic's Chicken Pie. So what do you do when you are craving for a particular food and you are far away from the outlet that makes and sells that food? You go into your kitchen and make some! And that's exactly what I did. Enjoy the recipe, make it and send me some feedback by  clicking here . Click >>  Different Shapes of Nigerian Pies  for how to get the heart, circular, star and other shapes of this delicious Chicken Pie. Chicken Pie Ingredients I got 14 Chicken Pies with the following ingredients. The size and the number of chicken pies you will get depends on the diameter of the cutter you use. My cutter is 15 cm (6 inches) in diameter. For the Chicken Pie dough 1kg (2.2 lbs) plain flour (All Purpose Flour) 300g (0.7 lbs) margarine 2 teaspoons baking pow...

The world looks to America to defend press freedom

The world looks to America to defend press freedom The world looks to America to defend press freedom Joel Simon is executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. This is the next installment in the CNN Opinion series on the challenges facing the media, which is under attack from critics, governments and changing technology. (CNN) For a brief period, following more than four decades of military repression, Myanmar saw an explosion of independent media. Beginning in 2011, exiled journalists flooded back into the country and started new publications. They covered the news, criticized the government and contributed to a national debate. But when I visited the country in June as part of a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, I observed serious backsliding. We met with the widow of a murdered journalist. We spoke with editors who told us they worried about going to jail. When we asked the g...

Kenya election: Five dead as Raila Odinga returns home

Kenya election: Five dead as Raila Odinga returns home Five people have been killed in Kenya's capital Nairobi as police broke up crowds of opposition supporters. At least two of the victims were shot dead, reports said, while others may have been stoned to death by a mob. Riot police were present but did not use any live rounds, a police spokesman said, blaming the deaths on the crowd. The supporters of the opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) had gathered to welcome home its leader, Raila Odinga, from an overseas trip. On Monday, the Supreme Court is due to rule on the legality of last month's re-run election, won by the incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta with 98% of the vote. The vote was widely boycotted by the opposition and denounced by Mr Odinga as a sham. He went away on a 10-day speaking tour in Europe and America after withdrawing from the election. On Friday, Mr Odinga's convoy snaked through Nairobi to avoid security forces who tried to block off ...