Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has UK passport returned, MP says.

[rjfp1962]

Hoping she's finally going to be released as she has passport returned and negotiations begin.....

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has UK passport returned, MP says

[rjfp1962]

Just pay the £400 million owed and get Nazanin on a plane back home......
Get it sorted Boris, do the right thing..!

[rjfp1962]

Both Nazanin and Anoosheh Ashoori are at a Tehran airport now and are about to leave Iran.
(Press TV Iran have just reported them being allowed to leave)
Thankfully Johnson hasn't said anything so far today to disrupt the process...!

[rjfp1962]

First pic taken of Nazanin on the plane - so on her way home now which is great to see.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60756870

[rjfp1962]

TTmonkey said:

So we paid them their 400 million back to ensure this happens.

Did it have to take so long?

Just listening to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in the House Of Commons, saying much of this being acheived was a change in the Iranian government last year - I'm guessing when Hassan Rohani was succeeded by Ebrahim Raisi as Iranian president in August election last year..

[rjfp1962]

I was reminded of a cancer scare she had, so just checking and found out she was cleared of breast cancer back in 2017 - Had the diagnosis been different I wonder what the outcome would have been, and in getting the right medical treatment whilst serving her sentence...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-42104184

[rjfp1962]

Lovely footage from Brize Norton in the early hours of this morning... Wonderful scenes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRVo17-yIo

[rjfp1962]

She's given her 1st interview today since being released.. Looking well after her ordeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5GAhEMx_tg

[rjfp1962]

LeadFarmer said:

rjfp1962 said:

She's given her 1st interview today since being released.. Looking well after her ordeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5GAhEMx_tg

She is a good looking woman, and she does look well considering her ordeal, though wasn't most of her time spent under house arrest at her parents?

From what I can see, it looks like Nazanin began house arrest on March 17th 2020, on tag, and had to stay within 300 metres of her parents home. The house arrest was due to end on April 18th 2020, but was extended indefinetely...

[rjfp1962]

Nazanin came over absolutely fine to me.. There is no reason to be grateful for her release, but she did thank Liz Truss for what she did in aiding her returning home. Politics was at play here with the £400m owed to the Iranians, and there is no reason why this transaction couldn't have happened years ago... Nazanin was a highly public figure, but just a small cog caught up in a huge bureaucratic piece of international to-and-froing...
But now the £400m has been paid, the prospects for the remaining hostages do look bleak unless there is a breakthrough regarding the countries nuclear programme.

[rjfp1962]

valiant said:

GranpaB said:

And where is all the support for the man that was also released?

There was an interview with his family the day he was released (BBC or Channel 4, can’t remember which).

However, Richard Radcliffe has continuously done his best to keep his wife in the public eye and harangued politicians continually to get her released rather than let the foreign office do things at their own glacial pace. Whilst it’s great that the other man was released it seems his family were a bit more content to let the wheels of government turn rather the husband who clearly wasn’t impressed with the level of support he was getting and managed to get public and some celebrity support to keep it front and centre.

It’s no surprise that the Radcliffe family is getting more of the spotlight now as they were fighting to keep it in the spotlight for the last six years when the government would rather he’d just go away.

This 100%. And listening to Richard in the interview yesterday, now he's got his wife back he'd happily become anonymous again....

[rjfp1962]

Nazanin got to have her say with Johnson today - I'd guess she was polite in not holding back.....!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61441631

[rjfp1962]

bhstewie said:

He apologised to MPs for his mistake over what he said about what she was doing there.

Shame he couldn't bring himself to do so to her face.

Not doing the loop again over whether a Foreign Secretary publicly stating she was in Iran doing something that he later acknowledged he was mistaken in saying is somehow supposed to have benefitted her situation as it's totally bloody obvious it didn't.

An apology to Nazanin from Johnson would be pretty worthless, just symbolic..

The words that come out of his mouth rarely help anyone's cause, not even his own, and certainly didn't help Nazanin....

[rjfp1962]

biggbn said:

andyA700 said:

biggbn said:

irc said:

biggbn said:

How predictable, another PH thread that essentially says 'it was her own fault, she was asking for it'.

No. I am asking why as an Iranian citizen in Iran she expected the UK govt to help her? The rules are clear. A dual nationality citizen is not a UK citizen when in the other country she holds nationality for.

There is presumably a good reason the UK has this rule.

The Iranian govt are the villains here. It was nothing to do with the UK govt and I don't think they should pay ransoms for foreign citizens which she was while in Iran.

Did she 'expect' to be rescued? Or merely expect that high ranking government official's thoughtless words should not negatively impact on her situation?

This is a difficult, sensitive case and I think it is much more nuanced than simply saying she has dual nationality so did not deserve the help of our country. Jeremy Hunt, amongst others, certainly seem to feel she deserved the help, and it shoukd have happened sooner.

One of the very few times I have been impressed by Mr Hunt.

Agreed!

Might not be the last we hear from Mr Hunt - I think he may well challenge again for leadership at some point, but that's another story..!

[rjfp1962]

For anyone interested. Nazanin is going to be interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour - Tuesday 24th May with Emma Barnett.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017khl

[rjfp1962]

How unlucky could Nazanin be in having the incompetent Johnson, first as Foreign Secretary, then Prime Minister during her incarceration?

I'm amazed she ever got home at all.........!