A Labour MP has urged people to send flowers to the family of jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for Valentine's Day.

Barry Sheerman, who represents Huddersfield, tweeted: "On Valentines Day, I am going to be sending flowers at the Iranian Embassy at 16 Prince's Gate, London, SW7 1PT to show our love for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and appeal for her immediate release. If anyone wishes to do the same, get in touch. #NazaninValentine #FreeNazanin."

The 40-year-old charity worker, who has family in Oxfordshire, was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport while travelling with her young daughter in April 2016 and sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying, a charge she strongly denies.

 

It comes after her husband Richard Ratcliffe spent almost three weeks in November on a hunger strike camped on the pavement outside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in central London, saying his family was “caught in a dispute between two states”.

According to her family, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told by Iranian authorities that she was being detained because of the UK’s failure to pay an outstanding £400 million debt to Iran.

The outstanding payment from Britain to Iran relates to an order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks through the government’s former arms-trading subsidiary International Military Services, which was cancelled by Britain after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Britain reached an agreement with Iran last summer to repay a £400 million debt to secure Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release, but the deal collapsed, MPs were told this week.

The government had previously refused to confirm that any agreement over historical debt had been reached and denied its link to Zagahri-Racliffe’s detention. 

In 2019 Mr Sheerman held a personal vigil outside the Iranian embassy to show his support for the jailed British-Iranian mother.

Mr Sheerman visited the embassy the day after Mr Ratcliffe had dismantled a makeshift camp after ending a protest, because he wanted to show solidarity to the cause.

The MP said he tried to speak to someone at the embassy but was told it was closed.
He said he knew standing outside the embassy alone was a “silly gesture”, but said it was a personal issue for him.

He said: “It’s just getting something moving here because all the talking in Parliament hasn’t changed anyone’s mind. Let’s get a few MPs here every day, everyone should come down. Not to rabble-rouse and chant and shout but quietly, to say there’s something really wrong here.”