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British-Iranian woman jailed by Tehran has release extended


Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman imprisoned by Tehran since 2016, has had her temporary release from prison extended by two weeks.

Richard Ratcliffe, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, said his wife’s release will now run until April 18 and the family have been told her case will be considered for clemency by the Iranian prosecutor-general.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was temporarily released from jail on March 17, as Iran struggles to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

While on release, she has been instructed to wear an ankle tag and must stay within 300 metres of her parents’ home in Tehran. 

The 42-year-old employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation was sentenced to five years on charges of espionage, which she has denied. Her family and the British government insist that she is innocent and had merely been in Iran to visit family with her young daughter.

Boris Johnson prompted indignation in 2017, when as foreign secretary he stated wrongly that she was “teaching people journalism” in Tehran.

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary, described the news of her extended release on Saturday as a “glimmer of hope amid the darkness.” In a statement on Twitter, he added: “Let’s pray that this remarkable family are reunited soon.”

As Iran struggles to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s judiciary has temporarily released about 85,000 prisoners, most of whom are charged with social crimes, but some political prisoners have also been allowed out on licence.

The number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran has reached 2,517 and more than 35,000 people have so far tested positive. 

Following a request from the head of the judiciary, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei granted clemency to an unspecified number of prisoners charged with security, military and financial offences in a bid to contain spread of the virus within prisons.

Tulip Siddiq, the couple’s MP, also welcomed the news of Zaghari-Ratcliffe‘s extended release and said the main focus remained “getting her home and away from the danger of coronavirus in Iran as soon as possible”.



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