This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/02/british-iranian-woman-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-held-iran-appears-court

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
British-Iranian woman held in Iran appears in court for first time British-Iranian woman held in Iran appears in court for first time
(about 1 hour later)
A British-Iranian woman held in Iran for months over accusations she planned the “soft toppling” of the government while visiting relatives with her young daughter has appeared in court for the first time, her family said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran since April, has appeared before a revolutionary court in Tehran for the first time since her arrest, her husband says.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, will be tried by judge Abolghassem Salavati in the revolutionary court in Tehran, her husband said. The 37-year-old told her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, during a phone conversation on Monday that she had attended her first court session.
Salavati is known for his tough sentences and has heard other politically charged cases, including that of the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who he sentenced to prison. It was the second time that Zaghari-Ratcliffe, project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, has been allowed to call Ratcliffe, who is in London and has requested a visa to travel to Iran to attend her trial.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s first hearing was on Monday and she was to present the name of her lawyer on Tuesday for approval, her husband Richard Ratcliffe said. No trial date has been set and the exact charges she faces remain unclear. In early April, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by members of the elite Revolutionary Guards at Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran, where she and her 22-month-old daughter, Gabriella, had been about to board a flight back to the UK after visiting family.
There was no immediate mention of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s hearing in Iranian state media. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. “When I spoke to Nazanin yesterday she was deeply upset,” Ratcliffe said on Tuesday. “She is desperate that our daughter has been kept away from her mother and father now for four months. She is desperate to come home. She confirmed that she remains frail – she is still losing her hair, she is struggling to regain any weight. This remains a very cruel case.”
Related: Husband of woman held in Iran urges Cameron to help secure her release Judicial authorities in Iran announced last month that they had indicted Zaghari-Ratcliffe and at least two other people currently in prison who are among a string of cases involving dual nationals. They did not reveal the exact charges against them.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in April while trying to fly out of the country with her toddler daughter, Gabriella, who remains in Iran with family after authorities seized her passport. The Revolutionary Guards have accused Zaghari-Ratcliffe of fomenting a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic and being the ringleader of a network of “hostile institutions” associated with foreign intelligence agencies, allegations that her husband has called untrue.
The Revolutionary Guard has said Zaghari-Ratcliffe participated in the “design and implementation of cyber and media projects to cause the soft toppling of the Islamic Republic,” without elaborating. “Nazanin’s case is part of a wider pattern – a number of dual nationals have been taken in an effort to justify the fiction that there is a plot of infiltration,” Ratcliffe said.
“It was the fourth time she had travelled with Gabriella to see her family in Tehran,” Richard Ratcliffe said. “The idea that this time she might be part of some active plot, when she had no problems before, is not only fantasy, it is a deliberate lie.” “The facts remain that Nazanin went to Iran on a family visit, like all the other dual nationals recently arrested. It was the fourth time she had travelled with Gabriella to see her family in Tehran. The idea that this time she might be part of some active plot, when she had no problems before, is not only fantasy, it is a deliberate lie.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation has said it has “no dealings with Iran whatsoever, does not operate and does not plan to operate in the country”. “It remains shameful to Iran that she and Gabriella are being used as a political bargaining chip in this way.”
The foundation focuses on providing journalism training and working on human rights issues, such as ending slavery and providing legal assistance to those who need it. Ratcliffe said previous indications that the Revolutionary Guards were perhaps seeking a deal with the UK government in exchange for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release now appeared unlikely to materialise. “I am upset that there is no deal for Nazanin. I had hoped the new government were applying pressure. But now it seems that Iran has decided to prosecute Nazanin, and she is to be tried by Judge Salavati.”
Related: Iran indicts three dual nationals including Briton, reports say Abolghassem Salavati is among a handful of notorious Iranian judges who are accused of repeatedly abandoning judicial impartiality and overseeing miscarriages of justice in trials in which scores of journalists, lawyers, political activists and members of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities have been condemned to lengthy prison terms, lashes and execution. Salavati also presided over the high-profile case of the Washington Post journalist, Jason Rezaian.
Since Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, hardliners in the Islamic Republic have seized a number of dual nationals visiting the country and accused them of security-related charges. Iran does not recognise dual nationalities, meaning those detained cannot receive consular assistance. Ratcliffe, who has called on the British prime minister, Theresa May, to intervene in his wife’s case, remains critical of the UK’s response to his wife’s ongoing detention. “It remains shameful to Britain that our government has never publicly criticised the Iranian regime for its detention of Nazanin and Gabriella, and that it continues to promote trade opportunities in Iran given the risks these now present,” he said.
Those detained typically face trial in the revolutionary court, a closed-door tribunal that handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is currently held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison after initially being kept in solitary confinement in an unknown location near Kerman, southern Iran. Gabriella’s passport was confiscated and she has been placed in the care of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family in Iran.
It’s unclear why Iran is increasingly detaining dual nationals, but analysts and Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family have suggested hardliners want concessions from the west in exchange for releasing them. Monique Villa, Thomson Reuters Foundation’s CEO, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was working for a charity that had never dealt with Iran. “She should soon be able to see a lawyer for the first time in her four months of detention, including 45 days in solitary confinement. We do not know what the exact charges against her are,” Villa said in a statement. “Nazanin had travelled to Iran in a personal capacity, on a family holiday with her two-year-old daughter Gabriella.”
A prisoner swap in January between Iran and the US freed Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans. “We are in permanent contact with Nazanin’s husband Richard, and have contacted all British authorities to intervene. We insist this matter should be resolved as soon as possible, not least given her precarious state of health.”
While thanking Guard officials for allowing his wife access to the telephone, Richard Ratcliffe warned that she had become frail and was losing her hair while being held in Evin prison in Tehran.
He urged Iran to release his wife and allow her and their daughter to come home.
“Nazanin’s case is part of a wider pattern. A number of dual nationals have been taken in an effort to justify the fiction that there is a plot of infiltration,” he said.