Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national, who has been arbitrarily detained in Iran since 2016, was yesterday (29 October 2020) issued with a summons and told to “pack her prison clothes” when she returns to court next week.
In March, Ms. Zaghari Ratcliffe was released from Evin prison in Tehran under house arrest at her parents’ house due to the coronavirus pandemic. Her five-year sentence was due to expire next spring and it was hoped by her family that she would be released early to return home to the UK shortly. However, yesterday’s chilling turn of events means she will instead stand trial on fresh charges on Monday (2 November 2020).
Despite both Iran and the UK governments denying any connection between an outstanding debt of £400m and the detention of British-Iranian dual nationals in Iran, Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s summons comes just one day after a UK court hearing on the debt was postponed for six months.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who has spent the last four years lobbying the British government to secure his wife’s release, met with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in light of the most recent development in the high-profile case.
Mr. Ratcliffe implored the Foreign Secretary to assert the UK’s right to consular access, so that British Officials could attend the new trial and visit his wife. While Raab provided assurances that the UK’s diplomatic push was ongoing, he relayed that the government did not judge it time to switch tact. A position that led Mr. Ratcliffe to state:
“We disagreed on this. Seclusion of the victim, with bouts of conspicuous cruelty in the face of decisions to wait, are key pillars of hostage taking. Both must be challenged robustly if British citizens are going to be protected from hostage diplomacy by Iran or others.”
Iran hostage diplomacy
Iran has arbitrarily detained dozens of dual nationals and international passport holders in Iran over the years as part of a policy of using people as diplomatic bargaining chips. Nazanin is yet another victim of Tehran’s hostage diplomacy; a favoured tactic for their foreign policy dealings.
Iran is a country with a long history of taking hostages. On the 4th November 1979 hard line student supporters of the Islamic revolution stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomatic officials and civilians hostage for 444 days. This act caused the moderate pro-democracy Iranian Prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan to resign and usher in 41 years of using innocent foreigners to deliver financial or political gain for Iran. The practice of hostage diplomacy has become normalised and is now a central cog in Iranian statecraft, despite universal international condemnation of the practice.
Currently, at least 12 dual or foreign nationals find themselves detained in Iran. This includes four with links to the UK: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori, Aras Amiri and Morad Tahbaz.
Individuals are invariably accused of some form of espionage or national security charge, held in arbitrary detention and interrogated with no access to a lawyer, often without charge, for many months before appearing in court with a pre-determined sentence placing them in terrible conditions in prison. Then the bargaining begins with the targeted country.
Since Iran does not recognise dual nationality it is perverse that it is dual nationals that are mostly targeted in this fashion. In a 2017 debate, then Middle East Minister Alistair Burt outlined the limitations this places on the UK’s ability to help dual nationals in Iran, saying:
“Iran does not legally recognise dual nationality. It considers our detainees to be Iranian, which has implications for consular assistance, which are set out in the passports of those with dual nationality. Under international law, states are not obliged to grant consular access to dual nationals, which is why our passports state that the British Government are unable to assist dual nationals in the country of their other nationality.”
Nonetheless, we try to help dual nationals in exceptional circumstances. In practice, that is often difficult, as we are finding in Iran. We have repeatedly asked the Iranian authorities to grant us consular access to our dual-national detainees. However, as Iran considers them to be Iranian, it does not recognise our right of access. We know that other countries face similar difficulties, but we will continue to press for consular access”
Why does Iran pursue hostage diplomacy?
There is no one simple answer to why Iran chooses to pursue a policy of hostage diplomacy.
Much of Iran’s political landscape can be contextualised by its recent history. Speaking to the International Observatory of Human Rights, former Foreign Office minister for the Middle East Rt hon Alistair Burt said:
“Iran doesn’t see the world the way we do, and it has reasons for doing that. It sees itself as a potential or actual victim both in history and in recent times. Recent events, such as the Iran and Iraq war… when Iran found itself effectively friendless against a serious attacker using chemical weapons and about which the world did nothing, has left a very, very deep mark on the psychology of those in leadership in Iran:
Mr. Burt, while making clear that he fundamentally disagreed with their logic, concluded that:
“One of the ways in which Iran seeks to defend itself and give itself a negotiating position is by recognising that people matter to other countries, and accordingly: if you’re dealing with an individual human being and you’re able to trade with them in some way it gives you an advantage”
In a webinar hosted by International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) on Wednesday 28 October 2020, Ana Diamond, who is herself a victim of hostage diplomacy, argued that “hostage taking is a foundational component of who [the Iranian authorities] are and what they do”.
During his interview with IOHR, Mr. Burt commented on how the events of 1979 might be viewed differently in Iran and how it has contributed to Iran’s use of hostage diplomacy today, saying:
“Of course, they have the memory of 1979 and what we would consider to be an outrageous and a failed policy of hostage taking which they saw quite differently; leading to the potential defeat of an American president… So, it’s deep in the psyche of Iran and I think it makes it more difficult for them to emerge from that and take part in ordinary diplomatic discourse”
However, appearing next to Ana Diamond on the IOHR webinar, Xiyue Wang – a Chinese-American Princeton academic who was arbitrarily detained by Iran before being released as part of a prisoner swap between America and Iran in 2019 – argued that the reason behind hostage taking is “simple”, saying:
“I think the answer is rather simple, because it works. Because every single time you look at the successful solution of a hostage situation…every time the Iranians got something”.
And essentially, this simple explanation does somewhat get to the crux of the matter. Iran still views hostage diplomacy as the best way to exert influence and get results in the diplomatic arena.
Be it securing the return of Iranian nationals in swaps, securing payments from other governments, getting individuals dropped from wanted lists or escaping sanctions, until the international community can convince Iran that they stand to benefit more from engaging in conventional diplomatic negotiations, than dual and foreign nationals remain at risk of finding themselves pawns of hostage diplomacy.
Hostage diplomacy: Victims and their families
What is always important to remember is that at the core of Iran’s tactics are real, innocent individuals and their families: Iran’s gains come at the expense of their unimaginable suffering.
As Xiyue Wang noted during the IOHR webinar:
“If you look at the kind of people under detention, they’re not political…This is a purely humanitarian issue, because we don’t owe them”
Those that find themselves spending years in Iran’s notorious prisons are not a threat to the regime, and nor does the regime view them as such. They are ordinary people with families who have their life turned upside down for nothing more than an association.
Webinar speaker Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic Editor of the Guardian described Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s shock at her recent summons while her husband Richard Ratcliffe said she had described herself as an “emotional wreck”.
Ms. Zaghari Ratcliffe is also reported as saying:
“Tell me every day that I won’t be taken back in. This is my nightmare. Tell me that the only way to go now is to come home – and not backwards, not after four years and eight months. Someone can help me, surely?”
The chilling words of Nazanin hammer home the real impact that hostage diplomacy has to those that find themselves caught in this political game.
The practice also places families in an awkward position, often in conflict with their own national governments. Do families go all out in publicly advocating for their release, or should they stick to the background and let diplomats handle the situation? This is not a conflict any family should have to grapple with.
Speaking to IOHR, Sherry Izadi, wife of the British-Iranian detainee Anoosheh Ashoori, said:
“The Foreign Office keeps on telling us that they’re doing their best, but I don’t really trust them anymore to be honest from now on.”
Xiyue Wang explained the lack of protections for him and his family throughout his ordeal, saying:
“There are no mechanisms to support people like us, the institutions also do not have any readiness of preparedness to deal with a situation like that… Our situations are exceptions, no institutions, no governments have a way to deal with this.”
Like many things with this issue, the answer is complex. Speaking to IOHR, former Middle East Minister Alistair Burt said:
“I don’t think it [public advocacy], conflicts in any way with quiet diplomacy, I think each has to understand the other. I know from personal experience how frustrated people get, with me when I was in the role and the Foreign Office for going about it a way they would rather not. They would rather take a much stronger public attitude and we may have to disagree with people as to the effectiveness of that, but we don’t want to stop people doing what they think is right.”
Asked about whether a public or private approach works better, Guardian Diplomatic Editor Patrick Wintour told IOHR Director, Valerie Peay:
“There isn’t a laboratory test to prove that one method is better than another. But I just feel, more broadly, that the UK government and other governments should be much more transparent about this process… Sometimes it’s almost patronising and disempowering and almost hurtful the way that families are dealt with, like they’re an encumbrance.”
The international responses to hostage diplomacy
Countries’ responses have varied significantly. Perhaps counterintuitively, America, who has been presiding over a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ and has seen to it that Iran becomes the most sanctioned country in the world, yet has been the most willing to negotiate with Iran in terms of prisoner swaps and payments.
The United States has also established the role of a Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, currently filled by Roger. D Carstens. The move was praised during the IOHR webinar by Patrick Wintour for taking the issue away from the foreign ministry and giving it to a senior individual, saying it has been “quite effective in America”.
The UK, as touched upon by Alistair Burt above has pursued a policy of quiet diplomacy. Ultimately it looks as if the fate British nationals detained in Iran is intrinsically entwined with the outstanding £400m debt Iran feels it’s owed.
Some Members of Parliament have implored the government to change its approach, with Tulip Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn where Zaghari-Ratcliffe lives, saying this week:
“I can only hope that there is work going on behind the scenes to resolve the debt quickly because we seem to be going in completely the wrong direction and Nazanin, as ever, is paying the price. The foreign secretary must assert the UK’s right to consular access and ensure that UK officials are present at Nazanin’s trial.”
As outlined earlier, the fact that Iran does not recognise dual nationality impedes the ability of countries to provide consular assistance. The UK Government’s Support for British nationals abroad guidance specifically states: “normally we cannot help dual nationals when they are in the country of their other nationality.”
In March 2019, after years of lobbying by campaign groups, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was awarded the status of diplomatic protection which is a much higher level of intervention than consular assistance. This raised her case from an individual one, to a dispute between the states concerned, in this case Iran and the UK.
Diplomatic protection is a rarely used mechanism and the fact the Foreign Office resorted to it might suggest the UK has exhausted many of the options available in what could be referred to as quiet diplomacy. Sadly, its use has not been effective.
Moderating the webinar entitled “Iran Hostage Diplomacy- What next?” Valerie Peay, Director of the International Observatory of Human Rights questioned whether Iran was at a tipping point. Wracked by Coronavirus, deprivation through sanctions, mass demonstrations and with Iranian elections coming in 2021,
“Perhaps it’s time that the UK reached out with humanitarian aid to help fight the coronavirus in Iran instead of bargaining people’s lives for £400m in old debt. We need to bring these hostages home now and if we can help alleviate the suffering of the Iranian people, rather than lining the pockets of those in power who seek to extort financial gain from imprisoning the innocent, then let’s choose action over stalemate.”
On 23 September 2020, the E3 (the UK, Germany and France) all summoned their respective Iranian ambassadors on the issue of dual nationals detained in Iran. The move was the first such co-operative approach by the three countries and was welcomed in the webinar by Patrick Wintour.
On an international organisation level, the EU has spoken out against hostage diplomacy on a number of occasions. In September 2019, the EU passed a motion of support for EU dual nationals detained in Iran.
Yesterday (28 October 2020), MEPs in the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Delegation for relations with Iran called on Iran to immediately release the prominent Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
While not being a dual national, Nasrin is one of the most high-profile individuals detained in Iran and is the winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize, an award that honours individuals and groups of people who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought.
The MEPs decision also carried significance because it concluded that “more active EU campaigning [is] needed” for those detained in Iran. Up until now, while the EU has been intermittently vocal in its condemnation, it has had very little role to play in securing the release of dual nationals, with that responsibility largely being filled on a domestic level.