Women around the world will take turns fasting for 24 hours in a show of solidarity with detained British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and to pressure the British government to do more to secure her release.
The campaign, led by women’s rights group FiLiA, follows a three-week hunger strike by Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, mounted outside the UK’s Foreign Office last month. Lisa-Marie Taylor, the chief executive of FiLiA, said women from the UK, India, Morocco, and Iran had already signed up to take part in the fasting relay.
“Richard has made it clear he doesn’t want people to get poorly,” she told The Guardian. “So we thought we’d organize a chain of women to each fast for a day to keep the pressure on the government and show Nazanin how much support she has from women in the UK and globally.” Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained in Iran for nearly six years, having first been arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the regime in March 2016. Having served a five-year sentence, she was locked up for another year.—AN
