Nazanin zaghari-ratcliffe

Who was to blame for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being held captive in Iran? It shouldn’t take a professor of ethics to answer such a question. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was being held on trumped-up charges by a despotic regime that has used hostage-taking to advance its agenda ever since its formation in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Back then it was said to be ‘students’ who spontaneously over-ran the US embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 hostages, holding them for more than a year while the new theocratic government ruthlessly exploited the situation to humiliate the US administration of Jimmy Carter. In the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, at least no pretence

Welcome home Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, released after six years imprisonment. The 43-year-old returned to the UK last week after the government settled a historical £400 million debt owed to Iran over a cancelled 1970s order for British tanks.  But it seems the mother-of-one is not done generating headlines yet, after she caused something of a stir yesterday with her comments at a press conference in parliament about her return from Iran. ‘How many foreign secretaries does it take for somebody to come home?’ she said. ‘What happened now should have happened six years ago.’ The drama of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s appearance in the Macmillan room though was nothing compared to what was going on outside the room. For

There was a rare display of unity in the Commons chamber this afternoon when Liz Truss gave a statement on the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. While Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner went on the attack at PMQs, asking whether Johnson’s comments when he was Foreign Secretary had made things worse, there was a far more conciliatory tone in the Commons when the Foreign Secretary updated MPs on the 43-year-old British-Iranian dual national’s safe return, after being detained in Iran for more than five years on charges of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government. Tulip Siddiq – the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn which is the constituency of the Ratcliffes

British-Mexican national Claudia Uruchurtu Cruz disappeared on the night of Friday 26 March in the town of Nochixtlan, Oaxaca State, Mexico. Claudia had been seen attending a rally protesting the beating of a local labourer, allegedly by security elements linked to the local municipal president. Unconfirmed witness statements claim she was grabbed and pushed into a red car. Claudia never arrived home and her family and friends have not heard from her since.  What is the right response for the British government? The most debated issue is whether to pay ransoms. Some governments refuse, others pay, or at least turn a blind eye to families that do. In Mali, where