Detained British-Iranian dual national Nazneen Jaghari-Ratcliffe has avoided being sent back to prison after appearing in a new court on charges of contempt of the Iranian state.

The British-based family told its local MP, Tulip Siddique, that there were fears he would be sent back to Evin prison in Tehran, but the hearing was adjourned before he could present his defense.

Despite repeated requests from the UK Foreign Office, no UK official was present at the hearing.

Siddique said: “It’s hard to imagine the mental torture of being repeatedly threatened to return to prison, and this horrible situation is now being dragged out again.”

Jaghari-Ratcliffe has been under house arrest in Tehran since March after he was temporarily released due to a coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

He spent the first four-and-a-half years of his five-year sentence and admitted he feared being sent back to prison for a longer sentence. No new evidence of the file was found in the hands of his lawyers to justify the allegations, according to his family. The second trial was announced last week, and Jagari-Ratcliffe was told he would have to bring clothes with him to return to prison.

Her daughter Gabriela is in London with her husband Richard.

The State Department said the new allegations were unwarranted and that if he was sent back to prison, the basis for Iran-British relations would change.

The political background to bringing Jaghari-Ratcliffe back to court seems to be more stringent than the position of conservative parties ahead of the US election and Iran’s own presidential election in June.

Over the weekend, the UK Foreign Office has been lobbying Iranian officials over Jagari-Ratcliffe, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is determined to increase pressure on the UK over what appears to be a new, tougher approach to dual citizenship.

Nahid Tagavi, a 66-year-old German-Iranian architect, was arrested on October 16 and taken to Evin Prison. On Monday, his daughter, Mary Clare, tweeted her release request, saying her mother had been denied access to a lawyer and was being held in solitary confinement.

French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah is under house arrest in Tehran. He was sentenced to six years in prison on national security charges after being arrested in June last year.
Adelkhah’s French colleague and his partner, Roland Marchal, were released in March in exchange for a public prisoner.

Marchal was released after the release of French engineer Jallal Rohallahnezad from France, who was facing extradition to the United States for allegedly violating US sanctions against Iran. The State Department said it was “deeply saddened” by the decision to release him.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert Karchak, an Australian academic, has been transferred to Evin Prison after being transferred to the prison, where he was met by Australian consular officials on 19 October.

Anusha Ashuri (66), a second British-Iranian dual citizen, was imprisoned during the outbreak of the entire carnivirus. Foreign Secretary Dominic RAB last week spoke to Ashuri’s wife to reassure her that he was doing everything possible to secure her release.

A third dual citizen whose identity cannot be disclosed also faces court proceedings. Last week, Tehran refused to release two detainees in the United States.

At a weekly press briefing by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the spokesman called on the UKL to repay the debt, saying that the UKL had arisen in the 1940s as a result of not supplying the Chiften tanks purchased by Iran. Saeed Saeed Khatibzadeh said: “We are moving towards repaying this debt to Iran as soon as possible and the source of this debt and its beneficiaries is clear.”

The Defense Ministry report said a UK High Court hearing was adjourned to hear the UK’s demand for the UK to repay the debt, according to the Ministry of Defense.