Global Campaign: 24-Hour Hunger Strike by Women in Support of Nazanin Zaghari

The organization “Filia” has launched a new campaign calling on women around the world to participate in a 24-hour hunger strike in support of the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen imprisoned in Iran.

The goal of this campaign, which invites participation in a 24-hour fast or hunger strike, is to pressure the British government to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from prison.

The campaign organizers say they were inspired by the hunger strike of Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari’s husband, who fasted for 21 days outside the British Foreign Office building to pressure the British government to pay its debt to Iran and pave the way for his wife’s release.

The campaign, organized by Filia, a voluntary organization working for the freedom of women, has announced that it will gradually publish photographs of all participants in the 24-hour fast, which began on Monday, December 19, on its website.

According to Lisa Mary Taylor, executive director of the organization, women from India, Iran, Morocco, and Britain have already registered to participate in this fasting ceremony from the beginning.

According to her, the organization intends to organize a chain of women for each day of fasting to maintain pressure on the British government.

The 24-hour fasting campaign was also inspired by the actions of Margaret Owen, an 89-year-old human rights lawyer who fasted in solidarity with Richard Ratcliffe. Margaret Owen, who visited Ratcliffe several times during his hunger strike, said about this: “Every time I sat beside him, I was concerned about his health condition. So I told him, I will fast in your place.”

Richard Ratcliffe previously announced that he would end his hunger strike outside the British Foreign Office building after three weeks, for the sake of their daughter, Gabriella.

Nazanin Zaghari, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at Tehran Airport in April 2016 at the end of her trip to Iran, where she had gone to visit her family, on charges of “espionage” and was sentenced to five years in prison. Months ago, despite the end of the prison sentence for this dual citizen, the Iranian government opened a new case against her and sentenced Zaghari to another year in prison.

Nazanin Zaghari has consistently denied all charges against her, and Richard Ratcliffe has repeatedly described his wife’s imprisonment as “hostage-taking” by the Iranian government over the issue of Britain’s 400 million pound debt to Iran.

Britain owes this amount to Iran because it failed to deliver Chieftain tanks under a contract signed more than four decades ago between the Pahlavi government and the British government at that time.

Source: Radio Farda