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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe John Stillwell via PA Images
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

British-Iranian woman ends 15-day hunger strike in Tehran jail

Nazanin was jailed for five years for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government.

A BRITISH-IRANIAN woman jailed in Tehran since 2016 on sedition charges she denies has ended her hunger strike after 15 days, her husband said today.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told BBC Radio that his wife had eaten some porridge with apple and banana.

“I’m relieved because I wouldn’t have wanted her to push it much longer,” said Ratcliffe, who also went without food for 15 days in solidarity with his wife.

Ratcliffe had spent much of that time picketing Iran’s embassy in London, urging whoever is to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May to make his wife’s case a priority.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe detained Richard Ratcliffe outside the Iranian Embassy in Knightsbridge, London Jonathan Brady via PA Images Jonathan Brady via PA Images

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, began refusing food to mark her daughter Gabriella’s fifth birthday.

She was arrested in April 2016 as she was leaving Iran after taking then 22-month-old Gabriella to visit her family. 

She was sentenced to five years for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government.

A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the media group’s philanthropic arm, she denies all charges.

The case has added to long-standing tensions between Tehran and London, which is a major arms supplier to Iran’s arch-enemy Saudi Arabia.

© – AFP 2019

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