The UK government advises that British and dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention in Iran, and that a British passport or UK connections “can be reason enough” to be detained by Iranian authorities.
At least 66 foreign and dual nationals have been detained by Iran since 2010, according to research published by the University of Essex in 2022, as part of a growing practice of “politically motivated arrests” that has been decried by Human Rights Watch.
Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed in 2022 after five years in a Tehran prison, expressed fears that the couple would now face the “brutal theatre” of court process to “get the government’s attention”.
This week state media published photographs purportedly showing the UK ambassador to Iran, Hugo Shorter, meeting the couple, whom the country has called “national security” suspects.
The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has called on ministers to act “more promptly” than they did to help free his wife, after Iran detained a British couple on a motorcycle trip.
