‘This is totally inhumane’ – shock at Iran’s new prison term for jailed charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 

The UK has branded the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for a further year in Iran as “totally inhumane and wholly unjustified”.

The British-Iranian charity worker has been given an additional jail term having already completed a five-year sentence on charges levied by Iranian authorities.

Her lawyer Hojjat Kermani said she received the second sentence on a charge of spreading “propaganda against the system” for participating in a protest in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009. As well as the one-year jail term she has been banned from leaving the country for a year.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement: “This is a totally inhumane and wholly unjustified decision. We continue to call on Iran to release Nazanin immediately so she can return to her family in the UK.”

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the government will be “working very hard” to secure her release, telling reporters: “Obviously we will have to study the detail of what the Iranian authorities are saying.

“I don’t think it is right at all that Nazanin should be sentenced to any more time in jail.

“I think it is wrong that she is there in the first place and we will be working very hard to secure her release from Iran, to return to her family in the UK. The government will not stop, we will redouble our efforts, and we are working with our American friends on this issue as well.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in 2016 on charges of crimes related to national security, and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

She completed the latter part of her sentence under house arrest due to the coronavirus crisis in March, but was returned to court where she was tried on new charges of “spreading propaganda against the regime”.

Redress, the human rights group supporting Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, said her lawyer in Iran intends to appeal the decision. Its director Rupert Skilbeck said she had never received a fair trial in Iran, and was innocent of the allegations made against her.

He added: “Nazanin has already suffered severe physical and psychological impacts from the torture and ill-treatment she has been subjected to during the past five years.

“A further sentence to prison or house arrest may cause irreparable damage to her health. Nazanin has never received a fair trial in Iran, and is innocent of the allegations made against her. Her detention has always been illegal under international law.

“The case must be dismissed and she should be allowed to return to her husband and daughter in the UK immediately.”

Some observers have linked Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case to a long-standing debt Iran alleges it is owed by the UK.

The UK is thought to owe Iran as much as £400m over the non-delivery of tanks in 1979. Ministers have said Britain continues to “explore options” to resolve the dispute, but insisted the “two issues cannot be merged into one”.

The new jail term comes amid tensions in the Middle East over Iran’s nuclear programme, with the country abandoning all limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in the wake of former US president Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw from the accord.