UK says Iran’s treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe is ‘torture’

British-Iranian, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was sentenced in late April to a year’s imprisonment and banned from leaving the country for a further 12 months. (File/AFP)
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Updated 02 May 2021
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UK says Iran’s treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe is ‘torture’

  • Iran's state TV said Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be released "after the payment of a military debt" owed by Britain to Tehran
  • British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says she’s being held ‘unlawfully’

LONDON: Iran’s treatment of detained dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounts to “torture” and she is being held hostage, Britain said on Sunday, after she was convicted anew and banned from leaving the Islamic republic.
The British-Iranian woman has been held in Iran since 2016. In late April, she was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and banned from leaving the country for a further 12 months.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who spoke to Zaghari-Ratcliffe on Wednesday, said she was being held “unlawfully” and “being treated in the most abusive” way.
“I think it amounts to torture the way she’s being treated, and there is a very clear, unequivocal obligation on the Iranians to release her,” he told BBC television on Sunday.
Her husband Richard Ratcliffe argues she is being held hostage as part of a diplomatic stratagem.
“I think it’s very difficult to argue against that characterization,” Raab said, going further than previous UK denunciations over the case.
“It is clear that she is subjected to a cat and mouse game that the Iranians, or certainly part of the Iranian system, engage with and they try and use her for leverage on the UK.”

Iran's state TV, citing an Iranian official, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be released "after the payment of a military debt" owed by Britain to Tehran.
“The release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in exchange for the UK's payment of its 400 million pound-debt to Iran has also been finalized,” he said. 

Meanwhile, a UK Foreign Office official has played down speculation on Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. 

"We continue to explore options to resolve this 40-year-old case and will not comment further as legal discussions are ongoing," a Foreign Office spokesperson said, in reference to the debt.
Richard Ratcliffe has linked his wife’s plight to a British debt dating back more than 40 years for army tanks paid for by the shah of Iran.
When the shah was ousted in the 1979 revolution, Britain refused to deliver the tanks to the new Islamic republic.
London admits it owes Iran several hundred million pounds over the contract involving a British intermediate company, International Military Services (IMS), but is reportedly constrained by international sanctions in its ability to repay.
“We recognize the IMS debt should be repaid and we’re looking at arrangements for securing that,” Raab told Times Radio.
But Raab said nuclear talks currently ongoing with Iran and its upcoming presidential elections formed a difficult backdrop in all negotiations.
Dual-national detainees including Zaghari-Ratcliffe “shouldn’t be held as leverage in any negotiations,” the minister stressed. “It’s just a basic moral decency.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, appeared in court last month to face new charges of “propaganda against the system,” a week after she finished a five-year sentence for plotting to overthrow the regime, accusations she strenuously denies.
Richard Ratcliffe said the family hoped she could at least serve any new sentence under house arrest, with her parents in Tehran. But the situation was “bleak,” he told AFP last week.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was initially detained while on holiday in Iran in 2016, when she was working as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency and data firm’s philanthropic wing.
She has been under house arrest in recent months and had her ankle tag removed, giving her more freedom of movement and allowing her to visit other relatives in Tehran.
In March, legal campaign group Redress handed a report to the UK government which it said “confirms the severity of the ill-treatment that Nazanin has suffered.”
The organization said it “considers that Iran’s treatment of Nazanin constitutes torture.”
Iranian authorities have denied that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been mistreated.
Richard Ratcliffe said secretive court hearings in London over the tank debt had again been postponed last week, and noted the personal toll suffered by the family.
Ahead of Christmas, their young daughter Gabriella made an advent calendar to count down the expected end of her mother’s previous five-year sentence.
“We have not yet discussed with her what two more years without mummy means,” he said in an article published Saturday on the website Declassified UK.
“Though again she wants me to sleep in her room at night.”


Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

Updated 13 April 2025
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Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

  • Nawaf Salam lays wreath at Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut to commemorate 50th anniversary of Lebanese Civil War

LONDON: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is scheduled to visit the Syrian Arab Republic on Monday to discuss common interests with the new leadership in Damascus.

It will be Salam’s first visit to Syria since he formed a government in February, and he is scheduled to discuss the issue of Lebanese citizens who disappeared in Syrian prisons during the Bashar Assad regime that collapsed in December. It has been reported that 622 Lebanese nationals remain forcibly disappeared in Syrian prisons.

“I hope to return with good news about those missing in Syria, and I will update the Lebanese people on this issue tomorrow,” Salam said, according to the National News Agency.

Salam laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of April 13, the date when Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975.

Salam wrote on X: “We pause not to reopen wounds, but to recall lessons that must never be forgotten. All victories were false, and all parties (from the war) emerged as losers.”

He added: “There can be no true state unless legitimate armed forces have the exclusive right to bear arms.”


Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

PRCS paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held in an Israeli place of detention. (@PalestineRCS)
Updated 13 April 2025
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Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

  • PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties

CAIRO: A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
“As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.
In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.
The UN and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.
It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that “the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.”
The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.
The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.


Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

Updated 13 April 2025
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Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

  • Demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat under pouring rain in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine

RABAT: Several thousand people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday to show support for Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Under pouring rain, demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine, a coalition of several political organizations, including the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).
“The Moroccans are with Gaza,” said the principal of a private school in Rabat who spoke to AFP.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing the official establishment of ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
The latest protest followed another large rally held a week earlier, part of a spate of demonstrations across the country since the Israeli army resumed its offensive on March 18 against the Islamist group Hamas after a two-month truce in Gaza.


Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

  • Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians to obtain security permits to access religious sites
  • Only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians

LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Palestinian Christian worshippers from entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank to participate in Palm Sunday.

Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Jerusalem over the weekend, limiting the access of Palestinian Christians to the city, the Wafa news agency reported.

Only a limited number of worshippers, primarily residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, were able to attend religious services at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Wafa added.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and is observed by Eastern and Western Christian churches.

On Sunday, Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa led liturgies attended by the clergy and a small group of worshipers.

Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — to obtain permits to access religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Father Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians. Permit issuance requires a security clearance and often asks that applicants download a mobile application managed by Israeli authorities.

“This is the second consecutive year that only a small number of pilgrims are able to participate in Holy Week and Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the ongoing conflict (in Gaza),” Faltas told Wafa.

“Churches would continue to pray for peace, justice, and freedom for all people in the Holy Land,” he added.

The Catholic Palm Sunday procession took place on Sunday afternoon, starting from Jerusalem's Church of Bethphage and ending at the Church of Saint Anne.

Christians gathered for services at the Holy Family Catholic Church and Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli attacks since late 2023. In the West Bank, Palm Sunday services were held in churches throughout Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.


Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

Updated 13 April 2025
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Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

CAIRO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will travel to the United Arab Emirates for his second visit to a Gulf state as president on Sunday, Syria's official news agency reported.
He will be accompanied by foreign minister Assad al-Shibani, who visited the UAE earlier this year.
They are expected to discuss issues of mutual interest, the SANA state news agency reported.
Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in February on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
His visit to the UAE comes as the new Syrian leadership attempts to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

 

(With Reuters)