Iran hands British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe another jail sentence

An Iranian court has handed British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe a new one-year jail sentence and travel ban on charges of spreading propaganda against the regime, her husband said on Monday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and accused of working with organizations allegedly attempting to overthrow the Iranian regime.

She and her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, repeatedly denied the charges against her, but she was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.

She was moved from prison to house arrest as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Her ankle monitor was removed last month when her five-year jail sentence came to an end, but she immediately faced fresh charges from Tehran.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the sentence “totally inhumane and wholly unjustified” on Twitter. “We continue to call on Iran to release Nazanin immediately so she can return to her family in the UK. We continue to do all we can to support her,” he added.

Her legal representative in the UK, REDRESS, has said it is not clear whether Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be returned to prison or house arrest with an ankle tag.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was given British diplomatic protection in 2019 and has been designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.