Ex minister praises ‘tireless’ efforts of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s hunger striking husband

The former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has weighed in on Richard Ratcliffe’s hunger strike.

Mr Ratcliffe is currently on a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office, in response to the government’s failure to secure the release of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from detention in Iran.

On 23 September she marked the 2000th day of her arbitrary detention in the country.

On Thursday Mr Ratclife met with the Foreign Secretary and his MP Tulip Siddiq to discuss the case.

He told the BBC in the wake of the meeting that he was “disappointed” at the government’s failure to free his wife.

“My criticism of the British government is they’ve not prioritised the safety of British citizens in the course of their nuclear negotiations, in the course of their discussions with Iran and other stuff’s been more important,” he explained, adding: “And actually nothing is more important for the government than protecting its own citizens.”

Mr Hunt, who was sacked from the cabinet when Johnson ascended as PM referred to Mr Ratcliffe as a “very, very brave man” in an interview with Sky News this morning.

He said: “I went and delivered some coffee to him, he’s allowed to have black coffee on his hunger strike but nothing with milk or sugar.

“He has fought tirelessly for five-and-a-half years since Nazanin’s been detained, but the thing that is different about Richard is that he decided right from the outset to go public about his campaign.

“What that’s meant is that the whole world has come to understand Iran’s hostage-taking and the way they are grabbing innocent people and using them as a pawn of diplomatic leverage.

In 2017, Boris Johnson erroneously informed MPs that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “teaching people journalism” before her detainment by Iranian authorities.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and her employer have both maintained Mr Johnson’s comments were untrue.

However his statement was referred to as proof by Iranian authorities that she was responsible for “propaganda against the regime”.