Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe who is detained in Iran, during a public demonstration to the Shia Islamic Centre of England in north London
Iran has aired more allegations against a detained British-Iranian woman which could add sixteen years to her prison sentence.
A programme aired by state TV in Iran focused on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the ‘soft toppling’ of Iran’s government.
The programme showed pictures of a BBC pay stub and an email from 2010 showing she once worked to train Iranian journalists.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said that the report was intended to increase pressure on the British government which is working to secure her release.
The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has gained momentum in recent weeks as British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson faces tremendous criticism at home over his handling of it.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe now faces new charges that could add 16 years to her prison term.
On Thursday, Iranian state television aired a seven-minute special report on Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
It included close-ups of an April 2010 pay stub from her previous employer, the BBC World Service Trust.
It also included an email from June 2010 in which she wrote about the ‘ZigZag Academy,’ a BBC World Service Trust project in which the trust trained ‘young aspiring journalists from Iran and Afghanistan through a secure online platform.’
Zaghari-Ratcliffe left the BBC in 2011 and then joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.
Both her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and Thomson Reuters repeatedly have stressed she was not training journalists or involved in any work regarding Iran while there.
The state television report comes as the British foreign minister faces criticism after he told a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was ‘teaching people journalism’ when she was arrested last year.
Though Johnson later corrected himself, the Iranian television report made a point to highlight them.
Speaking on Sunday, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband said the report and other Iranian comments about his wife seemed timed to exert as much pressure as possible on the British government.
Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe who is detained in Iran, is joined by supporters including actress Emma Thompson (left) and Tulip Siddiq MP (right) in Hampstead, north London before setting out on a march to deliver a petition calling for her release from prison
Actor Emma Thompson and Richard Ratcliffe pose for cameras in London before a march in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mother who is in jail in Iran
A programme aired by state TV in Iran focused on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (pictured), who is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the ‘soft toppling’ of Iran’s government
He said the material appeared to be from his wife’s email, which investigators from the hard-line Revolutionary Guard immediately got access to after her arrest.
‘It’s trying to justify the new charges,’ Ratcliffe said.
The report comes as Britain and Iran discuss the release of some 400 million pounds held by London, a payment Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.
The shah abandoned the throne in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution soon installed the clerically overseen system that endures today.
Authorities in London and Tehran deny that the payment has any link to Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
However, a prisoner exchange in January 2016 that freed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans also saw the United States make a $400million cash delivery to Iran the same day.
That money too involved undelivered military equipment from the shah’s era, though some US politicians have criticized the delivery as a ransom payment.
A woman holds a placard during a march in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mother who is in jail in Iran, in London
Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran have suggested that hard-liners in the Islamic Republic’s security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips for money or influence.
A UN panel in September described ‘an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals’ in Iran.
Others with ties to the West detained in Iran include Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly ‘infiltrating’ the country while doing doctoral research on Iran’s Qajar dynasty.
Iranian-Canadian national Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, a member of Iran’s 2015 nuclear negotiating team, is believed to be serving a five-year prison sentence on espionage charges.
Iranian businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father Baquer, a former UNICEF representative who served as governor of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province under the US-backed shah, are both serving 10-year prison sentences on espionage.
Iranian-American Robin Shahini was released on bail last year after staging a hunger strike while serving an 18-year prison sentence for ‘collaboration with a hostile government.’
Shahini is believed to still be in Iran.
Also in an Iranian prison is Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon who advocates for internet freedom and has done work for the US government.
He was sentenced to 10 years last year on espionage-related charges.
In addition, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission, remains missing.