Talk by Richard Ratcliffe
Date/Time
Date(s) - 22/02/2020
12:00 pm - 2:15 pm
Location
Leamington Spa Baptist Church
Categories
Richard Ratcliffe on hunger strike outside the Islamic Republic of Iran embassy. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
On 22 February, Warwick District UNA will host a talk in Leamington by Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of the imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Richard is a Human Rights Activist and has spent the last three years campaigning for the release of Nazanin.
Please Note: This event is likely to have a very large audience. If you plan to attend, please inform Gian Clare at gianclareuna@gmail.com so he can find a bigger venue if necessary.
Richard Ratcliffe has very kindly agreed to come and address the Warwick District UN Association about his campaign to have his wife Nazanin released from Iranian prison and most importantly to gather support for his campaign.
Nazanin is serving a five-year sentence over allegations, which she vehemently denies, of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government, having been arrested in 2016 during a holiday visit to show her baby daughter Gabriella, now aged five, to her parents. Nazanin, a charity worker from London, has suffered declining physical and mental health during her detention and suffered panic attacks amid the rising political tensions in recent days.
Human Rights groups say her trial was a sham and describe her as an innocent woman wrongly imprisoned, while the Foreign Office says her treatment fails to meet obligations under international law. Richard says she is being held by the Islamic republic as a diplomatic bargaining chip.
In November 2017 Boris Johnson then Foreign Secretary raised Nazanin`s case with the Iranian Government and said “When we look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it, at the very limit.” These remarks appear to have put her at risk, prompting condemnation from politicians across the political spectrum. A central part of Nazanin`s defence was that she was there on holiday and never worked to train journalists in the country.
The United Nations has on several occasions called for Nazanin`s release. The United Nations rapporteur on human rights in Iran called on Iran to immediately release Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The call was been repeated many times by Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention “We consider that Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been arbitrarily deprived of her liberty and that her right to a fair trial before an independent and impartial tribunal has been violated … These are flagrant violations of Iran’s obligations under international law”.
For recent Guardian articles see here.