UK – Independent, Sept. 15, 2026
The mother, who was held for six years in Iran, welcomed the appointment of the UK’s first envoy for complex consular cases Alistair Burt
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has welcomed the appointment of the first ever dedicated envoy to help Britons detained abroad but warned it must not be an “excuse for the government’s inaction”.
The British-Iranian mother, who was imprisoned in Iran for six years until Britain settled a £400 million arms debt, has long called for the government to appoint a specialist to help families battling to get their loved ones home.
She said Alistair Burt’s new role was crucial to ensure families, such as those of Craig and Lindsay Foreman who are currently held in Iran, do not feel “invisible”, adding that it should not be up to relatives to be the “political force” driving efforts to secure their freedom.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, led a six-year campaign – including staging a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office – to get Britain to repay the debt which led to her release.
“This is not the job of families,” she said. “This is the job of the government. They have to protect the citizens.”
Following her release in 2022, she criticised the government for the delay in securing her freedom, saying “what happened now should have happened six years ago”.
Speaking about her experience at Mr Burt’s first public appearance as envoy in Westminster on Monday, she added: “I was in prison. My life was destroyed for six years for something that had nothing to do with me.
“If you think about each person who is wrongfully detained or taken hostage, there is a whole tribe attached to that person. My child, my husband, my mum and dad, Rich’s parents.”
Although she said Mr Burt’s appointment was “very positive” she expressed a fear of quiet diplomacy turning into an “excuse” for government inaction.
“We don’t want to see that the government is hiding behind the fact that now we have got this team, we have got Alistair, we’ve got this kind of entity which is looking after the families of hostages, but then pretending that that’s it, and we can’t do anything else,” she said.
