Behind-the-story: Nazanin’s liberation from Iran after six long years
Yesterday, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was finally allowed to return to the UK and reunite with her family after almost six years of detention in Iran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on holiday in Iran visiting her parents when she was arrested for “plotting against the government.”
Another British-Iranian, Anoosheh Ashoori, was also released after being arrested in 2017. Both had become pawns in a long-running dispute between the UK and Iran, over a £400m debt for an order of Chieftain tanks that were not fulfilled after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said that debt had now been paid.
In 2020, the Australian government negotiated the release of a British-Australian academic, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who had been detained under charges of being a spy. Others, like Morad Tabhaz, are left behind in Iran.
It will be a desperate moment of relief for Ashoor and Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but it is also part of a longer chain of Tehran taking hostages to force concessions out of Western governments.