As Gabriella Ratcliffe turned six on Thursday, her mum Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe remained in limbo in Iran.
Last Saturday Nazanin yet again was made for wait for news on her application for clemency, and she is still confined to her parents’ Tehran home with an ankle tag.
Gabriella, who was stranded in Iran aged not yet two when Nazanin was arrested in 2016, was brought back to England to be with her father Richard last autumn.
She has not celebrated a birthday with both parents present since Iran detained Nazanin on trumped up spying charges.
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Local MP Tulip Siddiq (Lab, Hampstead and Kilburn) said on Twitter: “Yet another birthday Gabriella spends without her mother – it’s hard to believe she is 6 years old today. When Richard Ratcliffe and I started the fight to get her mum home she was just a toddler. For her sake, we must keep battling to #FreeNazanin.”
And former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt added that “each extra birthday Nazanin and Gabriella spend apart is quietly devastating to a family that just wants to be normal”.
On June 6, Richard Ratcliffe reported: “Again no news on Nazanin’s clemency decision. Again she was asked by the Prosecutors Office to call back for a decision next week.
He then suggested the “games of governments” and “manipulations” could not continue “without broken toys”. Nazanin is now again set to call for a further update on Saturday.
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