Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe barred phone calls to family after announcing hunger strike in Iran prison

Mother-of-one says her food rations have also been reduced in Tehran’s Evin prison just days ahead of planned hunger strike against lack of medical care

British charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, jailed in Iran since 2016, says guards have cancelled her weekly phone calls with her husband and reduced her food rations, just days after announcing a hunger strike against being denied urgent medical care.

The British-Iranian dual national, who turned 40 behind bars over Christmas, was not permitted to make her weekly Sunday phone call with her husband, Hampstead resident Richard Ratcliffe. Guards in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison said they would ban communications for any female inmates on Sundays and Thursdays.

Her food rations have also been curtailed, a measure said to have been implemented as a cost-saving measure, and one which is affecting the whole ward, her family have said.

It came just a few days after she said she would start a hunger strike on 14 January in protest of being barred access to doctors for a breast cancer scare and a painful neurological condition.

“The women have been told that there will be no phone calls allowed on Sundays and Tuesdays (Nazanin’s days for calling Richard). Calls on other days will be restricted to 10 minutes. It’s not yet known whether Nazanin will be permitted to call her husband again,” said Free Nazanin, a support campaign run by her family and friends.

“Nazanin also confirmed to her family that her food rations in prison have been reduced. This reduction affects the whole ward, and is understood to be a cost saving measure,” read the post written on Facebook.

Fellow prisoner and hunger striker Narges Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent activists, was also not permitted to call her husband and children in France.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 as she attempted to return home to London after holidaying in the country.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation employee was separated from her toddler daughter and held in solidarity confinement for eight months, which left her at risk of suicide.

She was later handed a five-year jail sentence on espionage charges in a short trial where she was barred proper access to legal representation.

Last Friday foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has visited Nazanin’s family in Tehran, called her incarceration “monstrous and totally unjust” saying she had been behind bars for half of her daughter’s life. He added she was being held as “pawn of diplomatic leverage”.

The mother-of-one has been denied treatment for a painful neurological condition in her neck, arms and legs which causes temporary numbness and paralysis. Prison guards have also refused to refer her to specialists after she found lumps in her breasts.

Last week she announced that together with Ms Mohammadi, who is serving a 16-year jail sentence, they would start an extendable three-day hunger strike. Ms Mohammadi, 46, has also been barred urgently needed medical assistance.

Mr Ratcliffe told The Independent the family feared his wife was not strong or well enough to survive the strike. He has called for an urgent meeting with the Iranian ambassador to London to discuss her case.

“I think it could be a really tough January for us – we are still half hoping that something moves so that [the hunger strike] doesn’t happen,” he added.

The Free Nazanin campaign, meanwhile, urged the authorities to allow the women contact with their families fearing it could have a serious psychological impact on them.

“They have suffered enough,” the group said.