The husband of British-Iranian prisoner Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe ended his hunger strike after 21 days.
Richard Ratcliffe protested the State Department and urged the government to secure his wife’s release from Iran.
He said he didn’t want to “get out in an ambulance” but “get out with his head held high” after the demonstrations ended. Earlier, the State Department said it had done everything it could to get home. Zagari-Ratcliffe has been jailed in Iran for five years on espionage charges and lost his second sentence on appeal in October.
He was arrested there in 2016 while taking the couple’s daughter Gabriella into his family and charged with overthrowing the government. He is serving a four-year sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran and one under house arrest. Her husband Richard began protesting on October 24 to pressure Prime Minister Boris Johnson to meet. The Iranian delegation at the COP26 climate summit and demand freedom for Britons imprisoned in Iran.
Mr. Ratcliffe said he had leg pain at night, and after speaking with his doctor, the decision was made to end his hunger strike. He said he had promised his wife to end his hunger strike when he got there, adding, “Gabriella needs two parents. He said he would go to the hospital for a checkup on Saturday afternoon and hoped to eat later. Mr. Ratcliffe was accompanied on Saturday by seven-year-old Gabriella.
Who said the hunger strike was “an amazing emotional experience” but “physically difficult.”
“Only when you stop do you see the significant effect it has on your body,” he says. He said “thank you very much” to everyone who supported him and added. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it myself. He said he felt his wife fell in the “bigger spotlight” and felt like we were “stopping back.”
Local lawmaker Tulik Sidik, who visited him during the strike. Said he secured a parliamentary debate on Tuesday on the Zagari-Ratcliffe case, which “has bipartisan support.”