Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held since April 2016 on what her family says are false charges of plotting against the government. AP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held since April 2016 on what her family says are false charges of plotting against the government. AP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held since April 2016 on what her family says are false charges of plotting against the government. AP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held since April 2016 on what her family says are false charges of plotting against the government. AP

Australian and British detainees met in Iranian prison, says Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband


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The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian national detained in Tehran, has confirmed his wife met Australian detainee Kylie Moore-Gilbert.

Mr Ratcliffe shared the news on Twitter while wishing his wife, who turned 41 on Boxing Day, a happy birthday.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Tehran on April 3, 2016. She was sentenced in September 2016 to five years’ imprisonment for allegedly “plotting to topple the Iranian government”.

A month later, the prosecutor general of Tehran said Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been running a journalism course “which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran”.

The dual citizen's five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who was staying with her grandparents in Iran, returned home to stay with her father Richard Ratcliffe in October. She had only been allowed to visit her mother once a week in prison.

“Happy birthday Nazanin. Our thoughts are with you,” Mr Ratcliffe said through the Free Nazanin Twitter page on Thursday.

In the social media post, Mr Ratcliffe revealed that his wife met with fellow detainee Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who is also being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Ms Moore-Gilbert, an academic and expert in Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, has been held in solitary confinement in the jail for the past 15 months. She has been denied contact with her family for nine months, apart from a three-minute call with her father, the Herald Sun reported.

The Australian national began a hunger strike on Christmas Eve after writing to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to do “whatever it takes” to secure her release.

“Nazanin called yesterday - she saw Kylie Moore-Gilbert at the health clinic who was being checked after 48hrs of being on hunger strike,” Mr Ratcliffe said on Twitter.

The organisation Iran Human Rights said on Thursday that Ms Moore-Gilbert was "in tears and looked desperate" 48 hours into her hunger strike when Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe ran into her in the clinic of Evin Prison.

“Before the guards pulled them apart Nazanin was able to tell Kylie that the world is watching her story & it will be ok,” Mr Ratcliffe said.

He added that a number of women in the ward joined the hunger strike in solidarity with Kylie on Christmas Eve.

“If Kylie has not been transferred out of solitary by New Year’s Eve, they will go on hunger strike again,” he added.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under increased pressure to secure Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release, partly because he made remarks as foreign secretary in November 2017 that critics said appeared to put her at risk.

He said that she “was simply teaching people journalism” in the country, but pivotal to the British-Iranian national’s defence was that she was in Iran on holiday and had never trained journalists in the country.

Last week, it emerged that Mr Johnson agreed to meet Mr Ratcliffe to discuss his wife’s detention.

Other foreign nationals have been held in the notorious prison in the Iranian’s capital. Australian couple Jolie King and Mark Firkin were detained in Evin prison for three months but were allowed to return home in October after the charges against them were dropped.

Before they were arrested, they had been blogging about their two-year trip on Instagram and YouTube.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE BIO

BIO:
Born in RAK on December 9, 1983
Lives in Abu Dhabi with her family
She graduated from Emirates University in 2007 with a BA in architectural engineering
Her motto in life is her grandmother’s saying “That who created you will not have you get lost”
Her ambition is to spread UAE’s culture of love and acceptance through serving coffee, the country’s traditional coffee in particular.

Politics in the West
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Siblings: five brothers and one sister

Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota

Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym

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Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera

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His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.

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3pm: Jordan v Vietnam at Al Maktoum Stadium, Dubai
6pm: Thailand v China at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain
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Monday, January 21
3pm: Japan v Saudi Arabia at Sharjah Stadium
6pm: Australia v Uzbekistan at Khalifa bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain
9pm: UAE v Kyrgyzstan at Zayed Sports City Stadium, Abu Dhabi

Tuesday, January 22
5pm: South Korea v Bahrain at Rashid Stadium, Dubai
8pm: Qatar v Iraq at Al Nahyan Stadium, Abu Dhabi

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Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.