British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe sentenced to one year in prison for ‘propaganda’ against Iran – lawyer

British-Iranian journalist and aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been handed a further one-year jail term after she was found guilty of propaganda activities against Iran, her lawyer has said.

The charity worker has also been banned from leaving Iran for one year, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the Emtedad news website on Monday.

Kermani said his client has not been called to prison and that he plans to appeal her sentence within 21 days.

He explained that the charges are related to her being interviewed by the BBC Persian Service and her participation in a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London 12 years ago, according to the BBC.

Reacting to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sentencing, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government will “redouble our efforts” in seeking her release.

“I don’t think it’s right at all that Nazanin should be sentenced to any more time in jail. I think that it was wrong,” Johnson told reporters.

He said the government was working with the US on the matter and would have to “study the detail” of what the Iranian authorities are saying.

In a statement, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the sentencing “totally inhumane and wholly unjustified.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was originally jailed at Tehran Airport in 2016 on spying charges, which she denies.

Her daughter Gabriella was with her at the time she was detained, before returning to the UK in 2019 to be with her father Richard Ratcliffe.

In 2020, Zaghari-Ratcliffe left prison due to the Covid-19 pandemic and was placed under house arrest in the capital Tehran until March before her ankle tag was taken off.

Last month, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said that Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s former foreign secretary, had prolonged Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s time in prison during his tenure.

The British-Iranian could have been freed “a few years ago,” Khatibzadeh said, as he accused Hunt of “hypocritical remarks” over his criticism of the Iranian government’s actions.

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