Amnesty International Calls on UK Government to Investigate «Hostage-Taking» of Nazanin Zaghari
Amnesty International has called on the UK government to investigate Iranian officials suspected of committing the «crime of hostage-taking» against Nazanin Zaghari, an Iranian-British national.
The human rights organization stated on Wednesday, June 1st, in a statement based on an analytical report, that it also called on the UK government to request the «extradition» of these Iranian officials if «sufficient evidence exists» to try them in fair courts.
Amnesty International, citing Nazanin Zaghari’s detention and her release in March 2022 «in exchange for Britain’s payment of 393.8 million pounds», stated that «Iranian officials, by detaining Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe», in relation to their longstanding dispute with Britain over a debt, «committed the crime of hostage-taking» and «this crime should not go unpunished.”
Diana Al-Tahawi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, also said in this regard: “Iranian authorities deliberately and shamelessly deprived Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe of her freedom and, using fabricated security charges and fake judicial proceedings, pressured the British government to repay its debts to Iran.”
Nazanin Zaghari stated in a recent interview that officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps forced her, before her release and while exiting Iran at the airport, to sign a text of «false confession» regarding «spying».
She signed these confessions in the presence of a representative from the British government and said that if she had not signed it, she would not have been able to board the plane.
The Islamic Republic of Iran arrested Nazanin Zaghari at Tehran airport in April 2016 on charges of «spying». Ms. Zaghari was sentenced to prison in court on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the Iranian government. This was while Iran’s judiciary, in 2021, when Nazanin Zaghari’s five-year sentence was nearing completion, convicted her of new charges to an additional year in prison.
Zaghari, along with another dual-national prisoner named Anoosheh Ashoori, was released last March after Britain repaid its old debt to Iran and both returned to British soil.
The aforementioned debt relates to a contract that Iran signed with Britain before the revolution to purchase Chieftain tanks, but which was not implemented after the revolution.
Human rights advocates say the Islamic Republic uses the detention of foreign nationals and dual-nationals to «extort» money from Western countries.
Source: Voice of America
