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Boris Johnson to call Iran in wake of comments about jailed Briton Boris Johnson to call Iran in wake of comments about jailed Briton
(about 1 hour later)
Boris Johnson is expected to call Iran’s foreign minister on Tuesday following reports that comments he made were being used in Tehran as a justification to extend the jail sentence imposed on a British woman. The British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, is expected to call the Iranian foreign minister on Tuesday as he comes under increasing pressure to retract remarks that campaigners believe could lead to a British-Iranian woman being jailed for five years.
The foreign secretary is facing calls to retract his claim to a parliamentary committee last week that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran at the time of her arrest last year, something her employer and her family insist is incorrect. Johnson’s suggestion that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was working as a journalist when she was arrested in Iran were cited as evidence she was spreading “propaganda against the regime” there, for which she faces the jail sentence. Her supporters believe the foreign secretary has damaged her defence that she was on holiday visiting family.
Richard Ratcliffe, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, said Johnson should make a statement in the House of Commons to correct his mistake in an effort to prevent the sentence being lengthened. While Johnson has offered to call his Iranian counterpart to clarify his remarks, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, called on him to go further and give a statement to parliament.
The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, said Johnson should resign if his actions have damaged Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s prospects of freedom.The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, said Johnson should resign if his actions have damaged Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s prospects of freedom.
In a statement released by the Foreign Office, a spokesman did not offer any correction, saying instead that Johnson’s comments may have been “misrepresented” and they provide “no justifiable basis” for additional charges. The foreign secretary was also criticised by Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who accused him of being too hazy on the detail of his Foreign Office brief. He said Johnson had got it wrong and called on him to pay more attention to his job.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year sentence in an Iranian jail, was summoned to an unscheduled court hearing last weekend at which Johnson’s remarks were cited as proof that she had been engaged in “propaganda against the regime”. The Foreign Office has declined to retract Johnson’s comments to a select committee last Wednesday, saying there was nothing in them to justify the response seen in Iran. However, it confirmed he did plan to address the matter in a call with Tehran’s foreign minister.
Reports suggest the new charge could add five years to her prison term, imposed over unspecified allegations of involvement in a supposed coup attempt against the Tehran regime, which she denies. Besides a parliamentary statement, Ratcliffe said Johnson should follow through on his offer to visit his wife in prison and asked for the British embassy in Tehran to make a statement to the Iranian press making clear her innocence.
Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a public retraction by Johnson was required. “I have promised Nazanin that it’s still possible they’ll be home for Christmas and I’m still battling on those terms ... I don’t think this is anything to do with us. I don’t think it’s anything to do with Nazanin or anything to do with our campaign. There is an issue that, essentially, the Iranians are battling with the UK about and they are using Nazanin to punish,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I would like him to retract in parliament, in parliament rather than in a phone call to his counterpart, what he said, and say clearly that Nazanin wasn’t training journalists and that she was just there on holiday,” he said. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is already serving a five-year jail term in Iran after being convicted of spying. Her family believed she was close to being released, but now fear she will be further detained.
He also called on Johnson to visit Zaghari-Ratcliffe in prison but insisted he remained hopeful his family could be reunited within weeks. Her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation – the charitable arm of the news agency – has backed up her defence and added its voice to calls for Johnson to row back from his remarks.
“I have promised Nazanin that it’s still possible that they will be home for Christmas. I’m still battling on those terms,” he said. Despite Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s position, Johnson told the foreign affairs select committee last week that he believed she was “simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it”. He added: “Neither Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”
Soon afterwards, she was brought a court to face further accusations that she was spreading propaganda, with Johnson’s comments to the foreign affairs select committee cited as evidence against her.
Responding to criticism, the Foreign Office said: “Last week’s remarks by the foreign secretary provide no justifiable basis on which to bring any additional charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,” and that he was planning to call his Iranian counterpart to “ensure his remarks are not misrepresented”.
In a letter to the foreign secretary, Thornberry said that although Johnson’s comment was not a deliberate error, it “reveals a fundamental lack of interest or concern for the details of Nazanin’s case and the consequences of your words”.In a letter to the foreign secretary, Thornberry said that although Johnson’s comment was not a deliberate error, it “reveals a fundamental lack of interest or concern for the details of Nazanin’s case and the consequences of your words”.
She told Johnson: “In the event that your actions have indeed cause irreparable harm to Nazanin’s prospects of freedom and result in her sentence being lengthened, I hope and trust that you will take full responsibility for that, in both a moral and political sense, and consider your position accordingly.”She told Johnson: “In the event that your actions have indeed cause irreparable harm to Nazanin’s prospects of freedom and result in her sentence being lengthened, I hope and trust that you will take full responsibility for that, in both a moral and political sense, and consider your position accordingly.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe said in her original trial that she was not working in Iran at the time of her arrest, but was visiting the country to show her infant daughter Gabriella to her grandparents. Rifkind, a former foreign secretary, told the BBC: “Yes, he did get it wrong. And it wasn’t just a casual remark, it was in evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, so he must have had a pretty substantial brief which gave him all the background.
Johnson told a parliamentary committee on 1 November: “When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it. [Neither] Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.” “Anyway, what he is now doing is exactly the right thing, as I understand it, he is proposing to call the foreign minister of Iran and put it straight and that’s what he should be doing and it shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.”
Following Saturday’s hearing, the Iranian judiciary’s high council for human rights said: “His statement shows that Nazanin had visited the country for anything but a holiday. He added: “Boris is a highly intelligent guy, he makes great speeches and so forth. He doesn’t have a background in foreign policy, he should by now have absorbed the fact ... that the detail is as important as the generality. And he has, on several occasions, not seemed to have remembered the detail that he should have been familiar with.”
“For months it was claimed that Nazanin is a British-Iranian charity worker who went to see her family when she was arrested ... Mr Johnson’s statement has shed new light on the realities about Nazanin.” Johnson has been backed by his cabinet colleague, the international trade secretary Liam Fox, who warned against worsening Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plight for the sake of political “point-scoring”.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s employer, Thomson Reuters Foundation, urged Johnson to correct his “serious mistake”. Speaking to BBC Breakfast he said: “There is nothing that the foreign secretary has said that would give the Iranian regime any justification for increasing the length of sentence here.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Last week’s remarks by the foreign secretary provide no justifiable basis on which to bring any additional charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. “This is a regime that is acting in an absolutely appalling way. We have got to be very careful that in attempting to have a legitimate political debate, or even point-scoring in the United Kingdom, that we make life more difficult for someone who is being held abroad on the spurious and unacceptable grounds.”
“While criticising the Iranian case against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the foreign secretary sought to explain that even the most extreme set of unproven Iranian allegations against her were insufficient reason for her detention and treatment. Monique Villa, the Thomson Reuters foundation’s chief executive, said Johnson had made a “serious mistake”, adding there was a “direct correlation” between it and the further accusation against Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“The UK will continue to do all it can to secure her release on humanitarian grounds and the foreign secretary will be calling the Iranian foreign minister to raise again his serious concerns about the case and ensure his remarks are not misrepresented.”