Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has revealed she and her family recently met with the wife of a British citizen jailed for 25 years in Russia, as her husband Richard Ratcliffe accused the UK government of being “very soft” on the case.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian citizen who spent six years imprisoned in Iran after she was accused of crimes against the Iranian government in 2016, revealed she has met with the family of British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza – who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April for opposing the invasion of Ukraine.
“I met his wife in Oslo last week,” Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe told the PA news agency at Glastonbury Festival, where she joined a debate on the rights of Iranian women on Friday afternoon.
“Of course, it’s a family being torn apart – they’ve got three kids.
“One thing that his wife mentioned was: ‘I was not meant to be raising kids on my own, we were meant to be together raising kids.'”
Mr Ratcliffe, who held two hunger strikes amid years of campaigning for help from the Foreign Office to release his wife, said he “recognises the frustration” of Mr Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia.
“The UK has been very soft – as it was in our case, as it often is,” he told PA.
“I don’t think quiet diplomacy works.
“My advice to (Ms Kara-Murza) was to be strong and be clear, and we’re with you all the way.”
Mr Ratcliffe said the meeting in Norway with Ms Kara-Murza saw them hold a “workshop of families to talk about how you can pressure the Government”.
He said: “I’ve been railing against the Foreign Office and thinking: ‘Should I be polite, should I be more rude? What’s going to work?’
“What should you do? And there’s no right answer.
“But keeping your loved one visible and pushing the Government to take responsibility is always the start.”
Ms Kara-Murza now fears her husband, who is a political activist, filmmaker and journalist, will die if he is not released from prison – after he already survived two poisoning attempts by Russian agents and developed a medical condition where he has lost feeling in his feet and one of his arms.
Mr Ratcliffe added: “It’s obviously tricky.
“Nazanin was a nobody when she was taken – Vladimir is an important person and this makes it harder for the British Government.
“But it makes it all the more important that the British Government stands up.”
Describing her meetings with Foreign Office ministers, Ms Jara Murza has said: “Everything that was said in these meetings were the right words, I just would like to see some action.”
Responding to this, Mr Ratcliffe said: “There are platitudes that get said.
“I found, often, it was like being on a hamster wheel… we’d have various kinds of activity but we were staying exactly where we were with the illusion of progress, and that can be very frustrating.
“In the end you do need to get in front of the Foreign Secretary… everything else is just (you) being managed.”
