UK – Mirror, July 20, 2025
For nearly six excruciating years, Richard Ratcliffe’s wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was held hostage in Iran. Arrested on false charges of espionage and plotting to topple the Iranian regime, the British-Iranian citizen became a diplomatic pawn between the UK and Iran.
Richard campaigned tirelessly to secure his wife’s freedom, and reunite their family – with Nazanin cruelly separated from her daughter Gabriella when she was only a baby.
Richard, who has advised the family of the British couple Lindsay and Craig Foreman, who are currently detained in Iran, on their own campaign to help bring their parents home, told the Mirror that he believes the UK government has a “playbook of stalling” when it comes these cases.
He also added that the way the Foreman family had allegedly been treated before launching their public campaign was “depressing” and suggested the Foreign Office had learned few lessons from Nazanin’s case, despite making “promises” to change their approach.
