The daughter of Morad Tahbaz, the British citizen detained in Iran, said her father had gone on a nine-day hunger strike after he was returned to Evin prison despite “promises” from the UK government that he would be released.
“He wanted the UK to know that he was still there and suffering and that he felt betrayed and abandoned so he started a hunger strike,” Roxanne Tahbaz said in an interview with Sky News.
Wildlife conservationist Mr Tahbaz, 66, was in custody in Iran at the same time as British charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori.
In March, following the UK’s payment to Iran of a long-standing debt of nearly £400 million ($523m), Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori were released and flew back to the UK last month.
Ms Tahbaz says her family had been led to believe that her father would be included in any release deal negotiated at the time and found out that he was not on the plane with the others only “with the rest of the world and the media”.
“The foreign office assured us that dad and mum would be a part of any deal for the release of hostages, they assured at every turn that he wouldn’t be left behind and we believed them,” said Ms Tahbaz, whose mother Vida is under a travel ban by Iranian authorities.
She said her family felt betrayed by the UK government.
“We had four years of having faith in the government and they abandoned us and left him behind.”
A petition begun by Amnesty International calling on the UK government to take “urgent action” to reunite Mr Tahbaz with his family has already gained more than 15,000 signatures.
Mehran Raoof, a labour rights campaigner, is another British citizen still detained by Iran.
Mr Tahbaz was arrested during operations against environmental campaigners in January 2018.
He is a conservationist and board member of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, which seeks to protect endangered species.
He and colleagues were sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for the US and undermining Iran’s security.
The eldest of Mr Tahbaz's three children, Ms Tahbaz said the arrest had come as a “huge shock” and that the ordeal had “hit us all quite hard”.
Tahbaz turns to public and media for support
While Richard Ratcliffe publicly campaigned for the release of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arrested in April 2016 and spent six years in prison and under house arrest in Tehran, Ms Tahbaz said they had chosen to follow UK foreign office advice and “stay quiet”.
But recent disappointing developments have since led them to speak out.
“We had always been advised by the foreign office to stay quiet and out of the media so that the negotiations wouldn’t be negatively impacted,” Ms Tahbaz said.
“Then we decided … that maybe we have to change tack because the other families went public and they got their family members back.”
Ms Tahbaz said Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who grew close to her mother Vida while the former prisoner was on furlough in Tehran, had been a source of strength and support to the family and that Mr Ratcliffe had encouraged the family to speak out about their situation.
Ms Tahbaz was standing next to Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe when the former prisoner made her first public comments after her return to Britain in March and said that the “true meaning of freedom is never going to be complete” until Mr Tahbaz, and other unfairly held inmates were reunited with their families.
“It’s challenging to navigate the murky waters here. Everything you do and say has an impact in different ways and scenarios. It was Richard and Nazanin that chose to include us in their celebrations and highlight the plight of my father.
“They’ve always encouraged going public and included us in that. But because we were trying to follow the advice we were given, we stayed away from that. But when they found out we were open to try a different tack, they helped us step out of the shadows and into the light."
Unwell, left behind and feeling 'abandoned'
Describing her father as “a very positive person”, Ms Tahbaz said that the reversal of furlough and return to prison had shaken his resolve.
“It’s been five weeks since the others came back so I think he feels a little hopeless and abandoned,” she said.
Wanting to draw attention to his situation and the backtracking on promises made by British and Iranian authorities, Mr Tahbaz went on a hunger strike.
But after nine days of not eating, his daughter asked him to stop because she feared for his health.
Mr Tahbaz has previously been sick with cancer and his daughter said he continued to have health complications that require treatment.
Ms Tahbaz said she does not know the health condition of her father or if he has cancer now because “there is no way to know”. She said she is able to communicate with her father on occasion only through her mother, who is still in Tehran.
“She’ll put two speaker phones next to each other and we shout out to each other, [but] my dad is the ultimate dad and never lets on that he is having a bad day or that he’s not feeling well, he’s always asking about his children and how we are and if there is any news we want to share with him and just to share ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’ and that we’re there for each other,” Ms Tahbaz said.
Mr Tahbaz, who was born in the UK, is also a naturalised American citizen and there have been suggestions that his dual nationality has been a hindrance to his release.
“It’s a bit difficult to stomach. They can’t decide that. England knows who their citizens are, my dad was born here, he’s British. He’s from here. So I don’t accept that excuse, really,” Ms Tahbaz said.
She said her message to the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was to “bring them home”.
“They promised us, if nothing else they should have upheld the furlough that they publicly celebrated and announced.
“We’d really like some answers but, also, we are really tired of words, we’d like to see some action now.”
