Britain is to give jailed British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe diplomatic protection in an attempt to put pressure on Iran to release her. Foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said resorting to a little-used way for governments to seek to protection their nationals was unlikely to be a “magic wand”, but might help Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case. But Iran’s ambassador in London said the move “contravenes international law”. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit. “I have today decided that the UK will take a step that is extremely unusual, and exercise diplomatic protection,” Hunt said in a statement late on Thursday, adding that the move signaled to Tehran that “its behavior is totally wrong”.

Source: Egypt Independent March 08, 2019 09:11 UTC