British-Iranian mother of one-year-old girl detained without charge in Iran

A British-Iranian mother and charity worker has been detained by the Iranian regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), separated from her one-year-old baby daughter and held without charge in solitary confinement.

The family of charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, is issuing an urgent appeal for British Prime Minister David Cameron to overturn her “outrageous and arbitrary” detention, The Independent reported on Monday.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s British passport was confiscated, along with that of her baby, Gabriella, when she tried to return to London after a two-week holiday visiting family in Tehran.

After being stopped at the check-in desk on April 3, she was transported to an unknown detention facility some 1,000 km away in Kerman Province, the report said.

Speaking to The Independent, her British husband Richard Ratcliffe said his wife was being interrogated daily and had been given no access to a lawyer or to see her daughter, who is being cared for by her grandparents. The family understands she has been made to sign a confession under duress, but does not know its contents.

NCRI Iran News - Iran Resistance

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, - Rt. Hon. David Jones MP

British parliamentarians present Ms.Rajavi a declaration on adoption of a decisive Iran policy

People of  Iran have never surrendered. They R determined 2 turn this dark page&build their future.

More than 200 cross-Party MPs and Peers today called on the UK government to adopt a firm policy towards Iran and make any improvement in bilateral relations conditioned on an end to human rights abuses and regional meddling. The announcement was unveiled at a meeting attended by a delegation of eight MPs and one member of the House of Lords with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, north of Paris at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The meeting on Friday and the policy recommendations come as Iran’s regime has faced scrutiny by United Nations bodies over its abysmal human rights record and exactly two weeks before Iran's Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts sham elections, whose candidates are strictly filtered and unrepresentative of the people’s desires.

Iran has the highest per capita execution rate in the world. Political suppression has intensified over the past two years under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani. Iran continues with its destructive meddling in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

British MPs demand sanctions against human rights abusers in Iran

British MPs demand sanctions against human rights abusers in Iran

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, December 10, cross-party MPs from both Houses of Parliament held a conference in the House of Commons discussing the state of human rights and the current political situation in Iran, the region as well as a recent terrorist attack on Camp Liberty.

Speakers at the conference that was chaired by co-Chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF), Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, included: Rt Hon. David Jones MP; Steve McCabe MP; Bob Blackman MP; Jim Shannon MP; Rt Hon. Lord Dholakia; Lord Clarke of Hampstead CBE; Lord Maginnis of Drumglass; Lord Cotter; Lord Judd; Peter Carter QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales; Peter Mathews TD, Independent member of the Irish Parliament; Paulo Casaca, former MEP; Mrs Dowlat Nowrouzi, NCRI UK Representative and Linda Lee, former President of the Law Society of England and Wales.

In her remarks to the conference, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Mrs Maryam Rajavi, thanked the MPs from both Houses of Parliament for their efforts to promote human rights in Iran and said ”The mullahs’ brutality in violating our people’s rights is because they want to hold on to power. It’s because the people of Iran … have not surrendered to this barbarism [and] staged a widespread resistance against the regime. Every month, teachers, students, workers and other strata stage hundreds of protests. Every day, the protests become louder. Even political prisoners send messages from inside the jails calling on people to resist … [these] protests have inspired many uprisings so far will ultimately realise the great change and make Iran the cradle of human rights and freedom.”

On Camp Liberty, Mrs Rajavi said, “Since 2009, 141 PMOI members have been killed and hundreds more, seriously wounded or disabled in these attacks … It is time for US and UN to fulfill their promise and make sure residents are allowed to sell their property at Camp Ashraf to finance their relocation.”

A woman appointed as Commonwealth secretary-general

Baroness Patricia Scotland

BaronessPatricia Scotland, the first woman to be appointed Commonwealth secretary-general, says she will "put the women's agenda very strongly on the table".

Commonwealth leaders meeting in Malta chose Scotland on Friday, November 27, 2015, after a fraught and extended meeting to choose between three candidates.

She is to take over from Kamalesh Sharma, who has served in the role for eight years.

Scotland, a lawyer who has dual British and Dominican citizenship, served as minister of state, deputy home secretary and attorney-general under the previous Labour government in the UK.

She was the first black woman to be appointed as a Queen's Counsel in the UK and at the age of 35, was also the youngest woman.

After Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced her appointment to reporters, she said she was "incredibly proud" to be the first woman to hold the post.

MPs urge UK to focus on human rights in Iran policy

UKParliamentconference

A vast array of British lawmakers from all major parties on Monday took part in a conference in the UK House of Commons to discuss the underlying reasons for increased executions in Iran and the future consequences of the deteriorating human rights situation in that country, the British ParliamentaryCommittee for Iran Freedom said.

A message was read out on behalf of the President-elect of Iranian Resistance Mrs. Maryam Rajavi at the conference which was attended by over two dozen Parliamentarians and legal experts and which heard also from prominent British human rights advocates and members of the Anglo-Iranian Youth Society. Cross-Party panellists called on the UK government to hold the theocratic regime in Tehran and its leaders accountable for systematic human rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism.

British lawmakers recommend new policy towards Iran

Steve McCabe MP

British Parliamentarians who attended a meeting of the all-party British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom on Tuesday in the House of Commons have endorsed a set of recommendations to the United Kingdom government on its policy towards Iran.

Human rights must be focus of UK policy towards Iran, MPs say

David Jones MP

At a major conference in the House of Commons on Tuesday, September 15, organised by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF), MPs and Peers from all major parties of both Houses of Parliament addressed the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran and the urgent plight of Iranian refugees and members of Iran's main opposition, the PMOI, in Camp Liberty, Iraq.