Organisers are urging the community to join them in demanding the UK government takes decisive action to release West Hampstead mum Nazanin
Moved to action by our story on Nazanin’s deteriorating mental and physical health in an Iranian cell, Hampstead parents are saying enough is enough.
They are demanding that Nazanin is brought home so the family is reunited for Christmas.
Community figures Jessica Learmond-Criqui and Linda Grove, with support from the Ham&High, have organised the march which sets off from opposite Green Park station at 10.30am on Monday December 5.
The group will descend on Downing Street and then to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call for Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to act.
Parents will deliver a letter calling for Nazanin’s release, as well as a Christmas card and presents for Gabriella, Nazanin’s two-year-old daughter.
As previously reported, Nazanin’s husband Richard, who still lives in West Hampstead, revealed his wife had written her family a “goodbye letter” from jail.
Nazanin had been refusing to eat for five days and was in a dangerously frail state.
He believes Nazanin is being held as a bargaining tool by the Iranian government following a revelation that the British government is embroiled with a row with the Iranian government.
Iranian officials accuse the British government of owing £500million over some military equipment.
Thomson Reuters charity worker Nazanin and Gabriella were seized at Tehran airport on April 3 as they returned from a family holiday to visit her parents in Iran.
Nazanin, who has dual Anglo-Iranian nationality, was thrown in jail and Gabriella’s passport was seized, leaving her trapped in Iran where she is being cared for by her grandparents.
Nazanin was sentenced to five years in jail by a court on still unspecified charges.
Ms Learmond-Criqui feels it is increasingly “urgent” that the Hampstead community throws its heart and spirit behind Nazanin as her health deteriorates.
She said: “Nazanin’s a member of our community, it’s time to take action.”
Concerned that Nazanin is being used as a “bargaining chip” in Iran, she says the British government is in “dereliction of its duty” to bring a UK national home.
The march will start a fortnight of action with other events planned. See Thursday’s Ham&High.
For more information about the march, email Jessica Learmond Criqui on jlc@lawlcs.com.
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