Sending Money in Suitcases to Tehran Has Made the Islamic Republic Indulgent

Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spoke with Radio Farda about the confirmation of the prison sentence of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British citizen. Shirin Ebadi: I am very sorry that the appeals court made the same mistake as the primary court. Unfortunately, there are several branches in the Revolutionary Court that we mockingly called the opinion confirmation branch. These are courts that are completely obedient to the Ministry of Intelligence during the appeal process and confirm the initial ruling, which is issued based on the request of the Ministry of Intelligence, verbatim. These are not actually appeal courts; they are opinion confirmation courts. Ebadi: Some courts are obedient to the Ministry of Intelligence. According to Iranian media, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been accused of soft overthrow by the detaining authority. However, Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari's husband, said on Monday that his wife has not yet been informed of what her charges are. How do you interpret the lack of announcement of charges despite her conviction? This is another example of how our courts are influenced by security agents. It is another sign of the lack of independence of Iranian courts, and the arrest of Ms. Zaghari is essentially a form of hostage-taking to demand assets from the British government that the Iranian government believes it is entitled to. There are courts that are completely obedient to the Ministry of Intelligence during the appeal process. The behavior that Mr. Obama exhibited towards the Iranian government, sending money in a suitcase for the release of four Iranian-American hostages, including a Washington Post reporter, has made the Islamic Republic indulgent and put individuals with dual citizenship at risk, as Iran seeks to achieve its unreasonable demands through their arrest. The Iranian Human Rights Defenders Center, which you manage and preside over, reported twenty days ago that Iranian judicial officials did not allow Nazanin Zaghari to even contact her relatives during Nowruz, despite the fact that she has a two-year-old daughter. In fact, the pressures on Nazanin are due to the Iranian government's desire to force the British government to pay a ransom that the Iranian government has requested. According to the information we have, she has not been able to contact her family in Tehran for twenty days, nor ask about her child. They cancel the weekly phone call, which is only three minutes long, for various excuses. The opportunity for visits through glass is also very limited. It is not that she has not had the opportunity to visit until now, but this opportunity is given to her very sparingly, and they try to prevent these visits and calls for any excuse to put more pressure on Nazanin. Ms. Ebadi, according to reports, the British ambassador in Iran has also been unsuccessful in meeting with Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Since Ms. Zaghari holds British citizenship, she should be able to meet with the British ambassador and utilize the legal services that the embassy provides. However, she has been deprived of this right from the very beginning. The reason is essentially to exert more pressure on this woman. She has been taken hostage. However, the apparent reason that the Iranian government states is that we do not recognize her second citizenship, and she came to Iran with an Iranian passport; therefore, in our view, she is Iranian, and the British ambassador has no right to meet her in prison. At the same time, I would like to add that under equal conditions, that is, Iranian citizens who hold the citizenship of another country and have been imprisoned there, such as those in Malaysia, Armenia, or Georgia, the Iranian ambassador goes and meets with them and provides them with legal services. For instance, a woman who was accused of involuntary manslaughter of a child in India, Mr. Zarif and the Iranian ambassador went and spoke with her and facilitated her release. However, they do not allow the same rights to Iranian citizens who also hold the citizenship of other countries and are imprisoned in Iran. This is nothing but a lack of independence of Iranian courts. In this regard, Mohseni Ejei: Nazanin Zaghari's five-year prison sentence has been confirmed. Nazanin Zaghari's husband: A large number of IRGC members were present at the retrial session of the case. The request for a retrial of Nazanin Zaghari's five-year prison sentence has been rejected. The head of Tehran's judiciary confirmed the five-year prison sentence for Nazanin Zaghari.