TEHRAN, Iran — A top Iranian diplomat has rejected Britain’s decision to give diplomatic protection to a British-Iranian woman who has been detained in Iran for nearly three years, saying it contravenes international law.
British officials have said that Iran has failed to meet international obligations in its treatment of the woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and offered her diplomatic protection this past week.
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said this meant that the country no longer regarded her case as simply a consular matter and had raised it to the level of a legal dispute between Britain and Iran.
But the Iranian ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad, said in a post on Twitter on Friday that Iran did not regard Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe as British.
“UK Govt’s extension of diplomatic protection to Ms Zaghari contravenes int’l law. Govts may only exercise such protection for own nationals. As UK Govt is acutely aware, Iran does not recognize dual nationality,” he wrote. “Irrespective of UK residency, Ms Zaghari thus remains Iranian.”
Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 while traveling on vacation with her toddler daughter in Iran. She was given a five-year prison sentence for what the Iranians called plotting the “soft toppling” of its government.
The sentence has been widely criticized.
In 2017, Boris Johnson, then the British foreign secretary, was accused of making matters worse by erroneously saying she had been “simply teaching people journalism” Days later, Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken to a new court hearing, where Mr. Johnson’s words were cited as evidence that she had been engaged in “propaganda against the regime.”
In 2018, she was granted a three-day furlough to see her young daughter and other relatives, but was returned to prison, where her family said sent her into an emotional tailspin. She later went on a hunger strike.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, welcomed the offer of diplomatic protection on Friday, saying it could lead to a resolution of her case within months.
“It changes the status for Nazanin’s case,” Mr. Ratcliffe told BBC radio. “Now it’s also the British government’s case and all the injustices that happen to Nazanin are effectively injustices against the British government.”
He said the top priority was to have a doctor see his wife to provide urgent medical care.
“A couple of months ago she went on hunger strike because she wasn’t getting any treatment, and was promised it but it didn’t happen, so she got very low again recently,” Mr. Ratcliffe said. “I’m sure this will give her a big lift.”
The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency, issued a statement on Friday welcoming Mr. Hunt’s action on providing diplomatic protection to Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“This is an important step that has not been used in the U.K. in 150 years,” the statement said. “We renew our plea for the Iranian authorities to release Nazanin as soon as possible.”
The British government has long been seeking her release without success.
Mr. Hunt said that legal proceedings against Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran were deficient and that she had been denied proper access to health professionals.
“It’s not a magic wand; it’s not going to solve things overnight; but it does create a different legal and political context,” he said of Britain’s decision to offer diplomatic protection.
Source : Nytimes
