Boris Johnson Condemns Zaghari's Imprisonment; Thomson Reuters Foundation Clarifies

On Wednesday, November 1, the British Foreign Secretary officially condemned the imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari in Iran and expressed a desire to visit her in prison. Meanwhile, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, where Ms. Zaghari worked in the UK, issued an official letter on Thursday correcting the Foreign Secretary's reference to her 'teaching journalism.' Ms. Zaghari was arrested in April 2016 upon returning to Iran from a trip with her young child, reportedly accused of conspiring for a 'soft overthrow' of the Islamic Republic. Following the initial ruling, in October of this year, Ms. Zaghari's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, announced that she had been charged with new crimes that could add 16 years to her sentence. In response to the recent news, UN human rights experts on October 20 expressed 'serious' concerns over the new accusations against Ms. Zaghari and called on Iran to immediately release this Iranian-British citizen from prison. At that time, the British Foreign Office and Iran's mission to the UN did not comment on the matter, and Iranian state media have not covered this news so far. However, on Wednesday, Boris Johnson officially condemned the prison sentence for Nazanin Zaghari and called the accusation of espionage for the British government a 'mockery of justice.' Mr. Johnson also expressed a desire to visit Ms. Zaghari in prison during his trip to Iran. He stated, 'When I look at Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's work, I see that as I understand it, she was only teaching journalism to people. It's unbelievable.' This statement prompted the Thomson Reuters Foundation to respond to the British Foreign Secretary on Thursday, correcting him. The Foundation's Director-General welcomed the Foreign Secretary's reaction to the prison sentence for Ms. Zaghari and explained that Nazanin Zaghari 'never' engaged in teaching journalism and is not a journalist herself. As stated in this announcement, Ms. Zaghari is the 'Program Manager in the Media Development Section' of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The statement explicitly noted: 'She [Nazanin] was not working in Iran and was not teaching journalism.' It is likely that previous statements by the Tehran prosecutor regarding Ms. Zaghari's accusations prompted the Foundation to feel obliged to clarify. Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor, detailed the new accusations against Ms. Zaghari on October 17, introducing her as 'responsible for teaching online journalism for BBC Persian' and stating that she was 'working to attract and train individuals for propaganda activities against Iran.' According to Mr. Dolatabadi, 'how to use a fake email, complex and long passwords, password storage, and the use of encryption software for content and information were among the topics covered in this training.' These accusations against Ms. Zaghari come at a time when the head of the BBC World Service had previously announced that Ms. Zaghari had never collaborated with the Persian section of this media outlet.