CAIRO, Jun 29 (Aswat Masriya) – In solidarity with British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari who has been detained in Iran for 85 days, Cairo participated in the candlelight vigils that were held for her across the world on Tuesday.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a dual national who was detained at Imam Khomeini International Airport, Tehran on April 3 after spending two weeks with her family there.
Since then, she has been held in solitary confinement for several days in an "unknown location" in Kerman Province, 1,000 kilometers south of Tehran, according to a petition calling for her release.
Her two-year-old British daughter Gabriella was taken from her at the airport and is still stranded in Iran with her grandparents as her British passport was confiscated.
Nazanin, a project coordinator for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been accused of "being involved with foreign companies and networks in planning the overthrow of the Islamic regime in Iran through projects involving media and cyber networks," according to a statement by the Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa on Jun. 15.
Nazanin's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, petitioned the U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron as well as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for her release.
Ratcliffe mentioned in the petition that his wife was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and has not been allowed to access a lawyer or her daughter.
"Nazanin has informed her family that she has been required to sign a confession under duress, its content unknown. Her family have been informed that the investigation relates to an issue of ‘national security,’" the petition read.
Nazanin has visited Iran regularly to see her family ever since she became a resident of Britain, Ratcliffe added.
She has been working as a project coordinator for the Thomson Reuters Foundation for the past four years. The Foundation delivers charitable projects around the world and does not operate in Iran.
CEO Villa reiterated that the Thomson Reuters Foundation "has no dealings with Iran whatsoever, does not operate and does not plan to operate in the country."
A number of workers in the Thomson Reuters Foundation lit up candles in Cairo in solidarity with Nazanin.
Ratcliffe called on Cameron to use his power and intervene. Over 700,000 have signed the petition to date.
