Iran supreme court upholds five-year prison sentence for woman on undisclosed charges News
Iran supreme court upholds five-year prison sentence for woman on undisclosed charges

The Supreme Court of Iran [official website] upheld the conviction and five-year prison sentence of a British-Iranian woman on Monday, but did not disclose the crime she is accused of committing. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested [Al Jazeera report] at an airport last summer after visiting her Iranian parents and introducing them to their granddaughter, according to statements from her husband. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s daughter remains in Iran, with her grandparents. Although no specific charges were disclosed when she was indicted by the Revolutionary Court in Iran last September, Iran’s top prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said she was involved in a plot seeking the “soft-toppling” of the Iranian government. According to a statement [text, PDF] from Thomas Reuter Foundation’s CEO [advocacy website], Zaghari-Ratcliffe was employed by the London-based charity, and had no dealings with Iran that would have lead to criminal charges.

The fact that the Supreme Court has rejected Nazanin’s final appeal to overturn her sentence is a huge blow. I would like to reiterate that I am entirely convinced of Nazanin’s innocence. She is not a spy but an innocent mother who travelled to Iran only to show her baby to her parents. I stand united with [her husband] Richard in calling for her immediate release.

The human rights conditions of journalists and others in Iran have continued to be an matter of concern worldwide. In January Iran agreed [JURIST report] to release four US citizens in exchange for seven Iranians being held in the US for violating sanctions against Iran. In November UN rights experts stated that authorities in Iran [JURIST report] should cease arresting, prosecuting and harassing journalists and online activists and the country should provide a safe space for freedom of expression. In October the UN released a report stating that Iran’s human rights situation remains alarming despite the signing [JURIST reports] of the nuclear deal earlier in October. In May UN human rights experts condemned [JURIST report] the growing number of executions in Iran in recent years. According to the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Iran and on extrajudicial executions, Iran had executed approximately six people per day between April 9 and April 26 and 350 total up to that point.