What would you do if your wife went to visit her parents with a one-year-old child, and when she was boarded on a flight home, she was captured, arrested and thrown into prison for five years in a foreign country?
On a completely trumped-up charge, this is an important point.
And now you, your wife, your child - in a word, your whole family - have become hostages of the political bargaining of the two states.
Will you fight?
Would you rather humbly wait?
What is family, love, devotion for you?
Is it worth fighting for them?
Or is it better to quietly crawl away and "build a new life"?
Think for a minute.
In the meantime, I will tell you the story of the Briton Richard Ratcliffe, who, right in these days, hours and minutes, when you read this column, is fighting for his family in exactly the circumstances that I wrote about above.
Here it is, meet.
Reuters
© Henry Nicholls
Today is exactly the seventh day of his hunger strike outside the British Foreign Office.
He pitched a tent and has been living here for a week now, by the windows of the Foreign Office.
On the ground, or rather on the sidewalk tile.
It's 13 degrees during the day in London, and the temperature will drop to five at night.
It was raining yesterday, and Richard was sitting on a folding chair in a waterproof yellow raincoat, covered with a blanket.
Everyone knows about him: the Queen, the Prime Minister, and Foreign Minister Liz Truss, who came up to talk to him, and, incidentally, went further on her business.
Liz Truss seemed in a jolly mood this eve as she entered 10 Downing Street.
Only a few hours earlier she met with Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who is still held in Iran, and who sadly has very little reason for jollyness.
Two worlds.
# FreeNazaninpic.twitter.com / lggkOBnuvG
- Chris 🕷 (@imageplotter) October 28, 2021
Nothing can make him get up and leave - perhaps this is his last fight for his wife Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe, who has been held hostage by the Islamic Republic of Iran for six years.
It kills me to see a British family being tortured in front of us.
A husband / father starving himself on the sidewalk for @ trussliz @ BorisJohnson to help save his wife who has been a hostage over half of a decade because the British gov will not pay its debt to Iran # FreeNazaninpic.twitter.com / 5wb7rEdwKC
- Amanda🌍 #FreeNazanin #FreeThemAll (@ Amandalavan1) October 28, 2021
In early April 2016, his wife, Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe, an employee of the Thomson Reuters charity foundation (a division of that very famous news agency), flew from Tehran, where she came to visit her parents, in London, home.
Zagari-Ratcliffe has dual citizenship - Iranian and British.
She was arrested at the time of check-in.
I don't know where how, but in Iran it is a corporate style to arrest foreigners at the airport.
So they arrested me for the first time in October 2018 and Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, whom the Iranians themselves invited to a scientific conference.
I arrived at the airport at 04:00, and as soon as I entered the check-in line, I was tapped on the shoulder.
A woman in a black hijab and a man in a military uniform asked to follow them.
I think everything happened to Nazanin about the same.
There is some special sophistication in this: you are already at home with your family with your thoughts, and right there, during the first interrogations, you are stunned by the fact that you will never return home and see your family.
At the airport, Nazanin's one-year-old daughter was taken away from Nazanin, whom she has not seen for six years now.
She was presented with everything, as we like, in full: espionage, a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Well you presented it, huh?
Nazanin with a one-year-old baby came to see her parents in Iran and so, in passing, decided to overthrow Ayatollah Khamenei, and then figured out: why waste time on trifles - I will overthrow the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the government at the same time.
In 2016, a court in the Islamic Republic sentenced her to five years and imprisoned her in solitary confinement in Evin prison in Tehran.
Richard Ratcliffe has fought for his wife all these years.
His temporary success was the fact that in 2019 the British government granted diplomatic protection to her, hoping that it would help.
But, of course, it didn't help.
For the Islamic Republic is taking foreign citizens hostage for very pragmatic purposes - for bargaining or ransom.
And even they themselves do not hide it.
It's one thing when the British press writes about it: "Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe is one of several British-Iranian hostages who are being held for a ransom, and this ransom has not yet been paid," notes The Telegraph.
The other is when the Iranians confirm the same.
Through lawyers and members of the Zagari-Ratcliffe family, Tehran sends word to London that the hostages will be in Iran until Britain returns Iran's old debt.
We are talking about the return of almost £ 500 million, received by Great Britain from Shah Pahlavi in 1972 as an advance payment for the fulfillment of a defense order.
Then Shah Pahlavi signed a contract with the British state defense enterprise International Military Services (IMS) for the supply of 1,500 Chieftain tanks, their modifications, and other armored vehicles.
In the period from 1953 to 1979, Great Britain was perhaps the largest supplier of weapons for the Shah's army.
The annual supply of British weapons to Iran reached an average of £ 110 million per year (translate this into modern money, taking into account inflation!).
On the eve of the Islamic Revolution, in 1978, Iran provided almost 20% of the workload of the British military-industrial complex and about 20 thousand jobs in the country.
That large order, which today experts estimate at about $ 530 million (taking into account the fact that a small part of it was completed), was fulfilled by Great Britain for some time - given that it was paid in 1972-1974.
And as soon as Imam Khomeini came to power in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution was defeated, the British "canceled" the order.
I would like to write: as we knew!
And now half a century later, in conditions when Iran is being strangled by US sanctions, resourceful overthrowers of the Shah remembered the amount not returned by the British.
In this sense, the Ayatollahs are extremely pragmatic: before his death, caring about "acquired back-breaking labor", Khomeini by decree even managed to create the Headquarters for the execution of orders of Imam Khomeini (modestly, in his honor, yes) - a multibillion-dollar conglomerate to manage national property "abandoned in the years chaos after the Islamic revolution ”.
In a word, what has fallen is lost.
And so that nothing is lost, you need to remember and count every penny that belonged to Iran during the monarchy.
And if this is not a penny, but half a billion dollars that another monarchy took and does not want to return?
That's the same.
If they do not understand in a good way, we will take it in a bad way, taking hostages.
The Islamic Republic began this method (1979: hostage-taking at the American embassy, unblocking of the Shah's assets) and continued (from the seizure of American citizens to a South Korean tanker) - and all purely for the sake of unfreezing assets under sanctions, returning old debts, especially important Iranian prisoners or money gesheft.
If you think that I, as a former arrested person on the same false accusation as Zagari-Ratcliffe's, simply emotionally “settle scores” with Iran, I will coolly quote to you one of my favorite statesmen of modern Iran - Vice President for Economic Affairs General IRGC Mohsen Rezai.
During the presidential election campaign of 2021, when he was asked how he was going to solve the difficult financial problems of the country under sanctions, the general replied: “Well, we will take one thousand Americans hostage, America will pay us several billions for them - this is how we will solve our problems. "
This is surreal.
Mohsen Rezaei candidate for Iran presidential elections said he'd take 1000 more American hostages to boost iran's economy.
For every hostage he'd ask several $ M as a solution to iran's failing economy. # IraniansBoycottElections
# NotVotingforIRpic.twitter.com / cEnagPxoaE
- Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 10, 2021
As a military warning (or threat) to Israel, it was said: "If Israel makes a mistake, those 10 thousand Jews who live in Iran will suffer" (at the same time it became clear why the Ayatollahs kept the Jewish community in Iran).
Iranian Opposition Telegram Channel: Iranian Vice President Mohsen Rezaee Warns That #Iran Will Take Action Against 'The 10,000 Jews Living In Iran' If #Israel 'Makes A Mistake' - Audio of report here https://t.co/196eIiMgJA#MEMRIpic .twitter.com / NfMKF9QDbc
- MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 12, 2021
In this very bad story of the battle between Great Britain, which does not want to return the money appropriated almost half a century ago (calling things by their proper names), and the Islamic Republic (by the way, I don’t know if the latter is the successor of the Shah’s Iran), eager to survive the crisis and not ashamed of any ways to knock out the money, and Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe, her husband Richard and seven-year-old daughter Gabriela, who has been growing up for six years without a mother, were caught.
More than 3.6 million signatures have already been collected under the petition for the release of Nazanin.
To understand the extent of the Zagari-Ratcliffe family's support, all you need to do is type #FreeNazanin on Twitter.
Even TV stars, writers, public figures are asking Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Minister Liz Truss to join the fate of this family and bring Nazanin home.
Oh @TrussLiz, you can't tweet “family and friends can reunite” in that jolly way, just hours after meeting a man who is literally * starving himself * to try and get his tortured family reunited - and no mention of that meeting?
Please please say you will help the Ratcliffe family.
https://t.co/yd60hT9lqS
- Victoria Coren Mitchell (@VictoriaCoren) October 28, 2021
When I look at the absolute despair and loneliness with which Richard Ratcliffe fights for his family in this bureaucratic indifference, sitting on a cold stone in front of the passing officials on Downing Street, my heart sanks.
By the way, Richard was one of the first to respond to the news of my arrest in Iran in October 2019.
He immediately began to repost news about the progress of my trial, connected journalists to this - undoubtedly, this is a fearless person with a big heart, and I want to thank him so much.
It's even somewhat embarrassing that I was lucky and my state evacuated me from Iran within ten days, and his wife, a British citizen, who was with me in the same prison in Tehran, was so unlucky that for six years now her held hostage.
Even though I was not a government journalist, and even - in some way - opposition-minded, my state nevertheless quickly carried out a brilliant operation to free a
citizen of the Russian Federation.
Because in cases when your citizen is taken hostage - it does not matter whether it is Somali pirates, Iranian Revolutionary Guards or anyone else - his release, as a citizen, is a matter of state honor.
A strong state does not give up its own people.
Yes, the situation with Nazanin is very difficult - in the end, you know, let's be honest: the state is not ready to pay half a billion dollars for each of us.
Not every state in general goes to such ultimatums, reminiscent of bargaining with terrorists.
But there are other ways as well - secret diplomacy, reciprocal hostage-taking and prisoner exchanges, and much more.
In the end, as a former hostage, I can carefully advise when communicating with the Islamic Republic not to use loud, catchy slogans and an imperative mood.
For it will hit the prisoner like a boomerang.
"Should!"
- not the best way to agree on something.
In the end, Tehran will respond in the same mood about that same half a billion dollars.
Pleased to see the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's ankle tag, but her continued confinement remains totally unacceptable.
She must be released permanently so she can return to her family in the UK, and we continue to do all we can to achieve this.
- Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 7, 2021
After all, Downing Street diplomats can call the Russian Security Council and consult with them.
Yes, yes, it was in the Security Council, I did not make a reservation.
Perhaps the Russian colleagues will suggest how best to talk with Iran so that the hostage will return home as soon as possible.
Well, yes: as far as I know, Britain, in spite of everything, does not interrupt any diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic.
Moreover, the newly appointed British Ambassador Sir Simon Sherkliffe, flying to Tehran from Heathrow on August 8, 2021, dedicated a series of posts to his imminent encounter with the magnificent ancient "history and culture", backing it up with a photo of a saffron rice kebab (as his wish for dinner the Iranians who meet him).
The comments under the tweet are especially good - as a condiment.
And - I've been promised a decent Koobideh to get me into the right mood ... pic.twitter.com/mjjE4Nsg7R
- Simon Shercliff (@SimonShercliff) August 8, 2021
So it's not that bad between Tehran and London?
I wish Richard Ratcliffe a speedy end to the hunger strike and Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe's return home.
Everybody needs miracles on Christmas Day: his beautiful little family, for which he fights with the courage and strength of a lion, and the people of Great Britain, to know that the country will not abandon them.
Next to him is his seven-year-old daughter Gabriela: "I promised my daughter that this year my mother will finally be with us for Christmas."
What happened to the Ratcliffe family, that the husband and father have been starving at the walls of the British Foreign Office for a week now, addressing - as if into emptiness - to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the head of the Foreign Office, Mrs. Truss, and including the whole of Britain in their campaign of indifference and solidarity?
Zagari-Ratcliffe, like me, was sent to solitary confinement in Evin prison: a concrete floor without beds, a huge daylight lamp turned on around the clock - you can say goodbye to physical and mental health.
And this goal, as always, is the same - ransom.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.