Iran released British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on Sunday. Shortly after the news of her release, it was announced that the woman had received another summons to appear in court.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, was convicted five years ago for espionage and conspiracy to overthrow the Iranian regime.
The project manager at the charity Thomson Reuters Foundation was allowed to leave prison last year over concerns about the corona outbreak in Iran. The woman was placed under house arrest and had to wear an ankle bracelet. According to human rights organization Amnesty International, she was not allowed to go further than 300 meters from her parental home.
British MP Tulip Siddiq said on Sunday that she had spoken to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and told her that her anklet had been removed, but that she has been taken to court again. A hearing is scheduled for next week in the Tehran court.
According to the woman’s lawyer, this is a charge of involvement in propaganda activities against Iran. The British government has called for Zaghari-Ratcliffe to return home as soon as possible, calling the treatment of women in Iran “intolerable”.
Caught up after a family visit
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 when she wanted to leave Iran with her then two-year-old daughter after a family visit. The same year she was convicted.
Her family, the foundation and the United Kingdom have always denied the allegations. According to the director of the British branch of Amnesty, Kate Allen, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a “prisoner of conscience” who was convicted “after an unfair trial” and should never have been imprisoned.
It is not known what Zaghari-Ratcliffe is like. Her health is said to have deteriorated during her detention in Evin prison.
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