Zaghari Freedom Campaign: Sanction 10 Officials Responsible for Her Hostage-Taking

The Free Nazanin Zaghari campaign is calling on the British Foreign Office to sanction 10 Iranian officials over what it describes as her “hostage-taking.” Zaghari, a British-Iranian citizen, has been detained in Iran for approximately two thousand days.

According to The Guardian, citing the Free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe campaign, this week marks the two thousandth day of Zaghari’s detention. On the occasion of this milestone, the campaign intends to request that the British Foreign Office immediately sanction 10 Iranians who have been “directly involved in state-sponsored hostage-taking in Iran since 1979.”

According to The Guardian, the Free Nazanin campaign has prepared a dossier on these 10 Iranians, which is set to be submitted to Liz Truss, the new British Foreign Secretary.

This is the first time the campaign has called for sanctions against Iranians allegedly involved in “hostage-taking.” The campaign wants these sanctions to be imposed through asset freezes and travel bans for these individuals.

Saeid Khatibzadeh, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, announced on Sunday, September 19, that Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s Foreign Minister, will meet with Liz Truss at the United Nations headquarters during his visit to New York.

This will be the first bilateral meeting between Iran and Britain at the level of foreign ministers since 2018.

Nazanin Zaghari, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, has been in prison since April 2016. After serving her five-year sentence and release from prison, another case was filed against her, in which this British-Iranian citizen was sentenced to one year in prison and one year of travel ban from Iran. Her two thousandth day of detention falls on Thursday, September 23.

The Free Nazanin Zaghari campaign said it will prepare two other lists of Iranian officials in the coming months. These lists were compiled in consultation with 25 families whose members were detained and subsequently used as hostages.

Richard Ratcliffe, Zaghari’s husband, has asked the British Foreign Secretary to be “active, brave, and defend British citizenship” in negotiations with his Iranian counterpart, otherwise Iran will engage in more “hostage-taking.”

Liz Truss is the fifth British Foreign Secretary to whom the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case has been handed over.

The Guardian report does not name the 10 Iranians whom the campaign is calling for sanctions against, but the Free Nazanin campaign states that these individuals participated in and played a role in various stages of her “arrest, interrogation, trial, abuse in prison, and torture.”

Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting had previously announced that Zaghari would be released in exchange for payment of 400 million pounds in British debt to Iran.

This money is the amount paid to Britain during the final years of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s rule for the purchase of Chieftain tanks, but with the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, these tanks were not delivered to Iran.

Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari’s husband, has stated that the Islamic Republic is using his wife as a hostage to obtain this money.

Source: DW