Anyone who looks at the BBC Persian news website will notice that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is barely mentioned, because the BBC campaign is aimed entirely at a British audience.

You may have noticed, as we’ve pointed out, that the BBC refuses to mention the fact that the Iranians arrested Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe because of her work at the BBC’s Media Action.  The Chair of which is still the BBC’s new head of news Fran  Unsworth.

Will the BBC’s serious omission of dodging this inconvenient truth so as not to implicate the BBC in Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plight be corrected now that we have someone who is so closely linked to the case?  Doubt it somehow….and don’t expect the BBC’s coverage of the EU to change either….Media Action received £9 million to peddle EU propaganda.

“Its work has absolutely no bearing on the BBC’s editorial decisions. The BBC’s editorial remit is to deliver fair, balanced and impartial coverage and we are satisfied that our coverage of the European Union does just that.”

The Iranians have released some of their ‘proof’ that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training Iranian journalists when she worked for the BBC in the form of some of her emails.  The BBC will only admit that she worked for the BBC’s Media Action ‘charity’….which is, to be blunt, in fact an organisation that trains foreign journalists to subvert political regimes in their own countries…it is ‘soft power’ deployed by Britain to influence events and politics abroad.

As yet the BBC has not reported this latest Iranian statement [Sky, The Mail, Evening Standard, Telegraph, Independent, the Sun Huffington Post…all have reported it many hours ago] though they were quick off the mark, and quite vocal about it too, to report when an Iranian court said Boris’ comment about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe proved she was guilty.  The BBC used this to put enormous pressure on the figurehead of the Brexit campaign and continually suggested that ‘perhaps he should resign’.

Why might they not be so keen to report the latest statement?  Because it proves Boris was correct [as we knew] and because it puts the blame squarely on the BBC which has been trying hard to avoid any ‘contamination’ from this story…flying the flag for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe but not quite all the way up the flagpole….did the BBC ever advise Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe about the likely consequences of going to Iran in light of her job?  Consider the huge effort the BBC put into getting Alan Johnson back from Gaza…a massive amount of publicity and effort….where is that in this case?  The BBC denies everything saying…

“Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was never a journalism trainer but undertook administrative duties such as travel bookings, typing, and filing.”

Her husband doesn’t say that the emails are faked and they do seem to back the suggestion that she was more than a ‘clerk’ as the BBC would like you to believe.

The BBC have a lot of questions to answer not least their attempt to exploit the situation to topple a government minister that they do not like….I guess if you can’t topple the Iranian Mullahs then why not have a go at the Tories at home?

Five Live just had a chat [around 18:45..ish] with some expert on Iran who was obligingly completely on-message as he laid into Boris and told some whopping great fibs about what is going on….Tony Livesey agreeing with every word.

The big lie is that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 for activities she carried out on her visit then, inside Iran.  She was not.  The BBC insist that Boris said she was teaching journalists at that time in Iran…he said no such thing, he made no mention of time or place….he wouldn’t because he undoubtedly knows that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested for activities she allegedly carried out during the 2009 Iranian uprising….from here in Britain…

“Some of the group were outside Iran, including the suspect Nazanin Zaghari.”

…as she worked for the BBC Media Action.

Nazanin worked for BBC Media Action between February 2009 and October 2010, “in a junior capacity as a Training Assistant” according the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, before moving to Thomson Reuters Foundation.

This is a deliberate deception by the BBC which is meant to divert attention away from its own role in Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest….and its lack of action to help her.

The BBC continues to perpetuate this lie in its online report today..…

Richard Ratcliffe met with Boris Johnson after the foreign secretary said during a Commons committee hearing that Mrs Zhagari-Ratcliffe was in Iran to “train journalists” – which could lead to her five-year jail term being doubled.

No he did not.

Arrested in 2016 for activities in 2009.  Boris knows that.

The BBC demands to know what the government is doing, and demands Boris be sacked, what is the BBC doing for one of its ex-staff now thrown to the wolves and abandoned?  Sack Lord Hall Hall.

Laura Kuenssberg told us that the issue of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention was highly sensitive and political which is why the BBC has been stomping around in its size 12’s adding to the kicking Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is getting.

The BBC led the chorus against Boris and his comment [briefed to him by who? and why?] and are now targeting Gove for his innocuous comments.

Sarah Montague this morning [08:10] told us that Gove had ‘waded into this’ with his comments and yet it was Marr that raised the subject asking what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing in Iran….shouldn’t Marr just have said ‘Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on holiday so why do you think the Iranians are holding her and what can we do to get her released?’  Of course he wouldn’t like to ask that because the answer leads directly to the BBC’s door.  Peter Allen yesterday also asked what she was doing in Iran…so again raising doubts about her activities.

Then Montague, trying to attack Gove in a somewhat poisonous piece, went down a similar avenue as she quoted Gove’s reply to Marr...

Asked on Sunday by Mr Marr what she had been doing in Iran, Mr Gove replied: “I don’t know” adding there was “no reason Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should be in prison in Iran so far as any of us know”.

She went on to ask the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ‘He says ‘So far as any of us know’….Do you think he doubts it?’  That is, what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she was doing…ie on holiday.

As said that was supposed to be an attack on Gove but that extraordinary piece of interpretation of a normal turn of phrase in fact merely gives added ammunition to the Iranians who can now say ‘The BBC thinks a second British government minister has doubts about the truth of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s claims to be merely on holiday.’

The BBC can’t have it both ways….attacking Boris and Gove [Gove having been asked to comment by the BBC] for jeopardising Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s position and then at least three times themselves casting doubt on her story and broadcasting it to the world.

I guess deposing two big Brexit supporting ministers is more important to the BBC than the life of one dual-national woman who got caught up in international politics.

 

The Iranian government has opened a criminal investigation into 152 current and former BBC Persian journalists on charges of “conspiracy against national security”.

October 25 2017

Where is the total outrage from the BBC, from Labour, from all those ‘inside the Tory party against Boris’ [Sarah Montague not mentioning they are pro-EU Tories] about these 152 BBC employees?  There came  none.  Only one ex-BBC employee gets their interest…one whom they think can be exploited to topple Boris…and now Gove.  Funny that.

The BBC tells us that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was merely a small, insignificant admin cog in its Media Action machine…..who can doubt that?

But Iran says it has arrested her for her employment by the BBC’s Media Action and its role in trying to subvert and topple the Iranian regime and links to the BBC’s Persian Service.

The BBC makes no mention of these charges in any of its news bulletins or programmes.

“IT’S THE PICTURES, STUPID.”
Iran’s Reign of Terror can seem a long way away. And sometimes not. There are plenty of Iranians here. They’ll all talk. But nobody wants to go on the record. The fear is manifest. BBC Persian TV and Voice of America carry regular reports of rape, torture and murder against opponents of the regime. Neda was just the start.
So, what happened to change everything?
“It’s the pictures, stupid. The impact of TV news lies in the pictures. Doesn’t matter if it’s Iran, or wherever. Same story.”

Here’s what Media Action tells you about its role in a recruitment advert, here for an accountant….

Job Introduction

BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity, which uses media and communications to help reduce poverty and support people to understand their rights. We do this through partnering with civil society, media and others to produce creative programmes and other outputs which inform and engage audiences on key development issues. We also strengthen the media sector through building professional capacity and infrastructure. We focus on health, governance and rights, and resilience and humanitarian response. 

Sounds rather innocuous but those fine sounding words conceal a somewhat more dangerous objective….to subvert and undermine regimes that don’t match the liberal, democratic standards that the BBC and others want them to by broadcasting into countries such as Iran information the regimes don’t want the population to have…and of course doing this by using Iranian exile journalists.

Here’s an ex-BBC senior journalist telling you how effective the BBC was at encouraging revolt and uprising especially in 2009….the time when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was supposedly involved with BBC Media Action…

The Power of TV News: An Insider’s Perspective on the Launch of BBC Persian TV in the Year of the Iranian Uprising

We were in Tehran to help prepare the launch of a new BBC Persian TV channel. Naturally enough Mr. Kallur said “no,” without actually ever saying “no” to our newsgathering presence in Tehran. All very Iranian.

“Well, of course you’re from MI6. You’re a spy.” … “Pass the pomegranate juice, please.”

The accusation was made to the director of the BBC’s World Service, Nigel Chapman. He and I and the BBC’s senior Persian analyst, Sadegh Saba, were sitting in the headquarters of the Iranian President, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. His head of communications and senior advisor, Mehdi Kallur, didn’t beat about the bush.

“The West has meddled for decades. We just don’t trust what you’re up to.”

And yet, there were signs of hope. A sea of satellite TV dishes dotted the rooftops. And in nearly every home I went into family and friends were watching the U.S. Voice of America TV, avidly. The chest‐beating chanting of “Death to America,” I also discovered, was nonsense — a carefully choreographed clique drummed up for special occasions. Virtually every Iranian I spoke to really liked America — even loved it. They might not trust it, but they love the culture: California, coast and cars, and what they see in the movies.

On the face of it, though, as Brits, and therefore junior players in this saga, the BBC was seemingly up the Persian Gulf without a paddle. It was the end of 2007. No staff, no reporters in Tehran, and seemingly no audience.

Roll forward 18 months to the uprising of June 2009. “I went to bed in one country, and woke up in another.” The memorable words of (UK) Channel 4 News reporter, Lindsey Hillsum. Hundreds of thousands were out on the streets in Tehran and cities across Iran, disputing the “stolen election.” Joe Klein, reporting the Iranian election in Tehran for Time magazine and CNN, describes it like this: “Anarchy, total chaos, and everyone watching the BBC.”

“The shooting of Neda Soltan and the killings and beatings that followed changed everything” according to Karim Sadjadpour at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.  “Those picutres were seen by everyone in Iran, mostly on the BBC,, but also on Voice of America or CNN. And make no mistake, the very existence of BBC TV was a critical factor.”

Read the full article here.

You can judge the BBC’s interest in Iran from this site…even though the BBC is banned in Iran it still seeks to influence events there with its broadcasting….you can see the various strategies used by the media to influence politics in Iran and other countries…..and how effective it is….

The Role of New Media in the 2009 Iranian Elections

Robert Faris told participants that new media played a significant role, and international broadcasting services played a more important role. New media tools offer faster information access, but lack accuracy and credibility of traditional forms of media. Censorship is a challenge to use of social media tools, but due to the decentralised nature of tools such as Twitter and mobile phone short message service (SMS), they present challenges to government controls and they can reduce costs and increase efficiency for social movements. In Iran, they united a movement and disseminated information both inside and outside the country.

The Role of the Media as Watch-dogs, Agenda-setters and Gatekeepers in Arab States

“Before the advent of Arab satellite television, the idea that media might drive public opinion in a direction other than that dictated by government was essentially unthinkable, much less that media would have an agenda-setting effect independent from that of those in power.” The author describes a “seminal moment for the media” when a cellphone video of police abuse of power drew intense media interest and brought about the conviction of policemen. With the advent of satellite television and the broadcast of the channel Al-Jazeera, governments temporarily lost control of the broadcast media. Electronic media then took a role in opinion formation.”

Inspiring Political Participation

Iran’s Twitter Revolution

Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: An Unexplored Strategic Opportunity?

Against All Odds: The Building of a Women’s Movement in the Islamic Republic of Iran

 

In 2011 the BBC World Service received a grant from the government…why?

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell called the media “one of our most powerful tools”: “We want to give people knowledge and a voice.”

BBC Media Action may have laudable chairtable aims by ensuring important information on issues such as health are disseminated to those who need it to improve their lives but there is a more political side to Media Action’s work….the BBC is not admitting this in its attacks on Boris and Gove, the BBC is at the centre of this political drama but erases its own presence at every turn not admitting it has a large role in it, blaming Boris and Gove when it should be taking the blame itself.

It seems that the BBC are so intent on getting rid of a Brexit supporting minister that they are prepared to spread Iranian propaganda to do so.

We now hear that Boris is ‘under mounting pressure’…why?…because Corbyn has demanded he be sacked.   That’s not pressure is it?  That’s just the usual Labour politicking by a man who knows he has the BBC in his pocket and whom he can rely upon to broadcast his views as the most important views in the country…never mind he is closely linked to the Iranian regime….so you have to ask what he is doing to help Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe….not a lot from what I can see….just playing politics and using Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a pawn in his game.

Then we have this from the BBC…

Michael Gove has come under fire for saying he didn’t know what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing in Iran when she was arrested in 2016.

Mr Gove told Andrew Marr he would “take her husband’s assurance” that the British-Iranian citizen was on holiday.

So Gove is under attack because he says he didn’t know what the woman was doing in Iran but he understands she was on holiday….a perfectly normal statement but the BBC et al have jumped on him.

Funny then that I have just listened to Peter Allen ask Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sister-in-law what was she doing in Iran and was she on holiday? Surely there is no doubt at all, why ask the question?   Should Peter Allen now resign?  Will he be vilified by the Left-wing vultures out to ‘defend’ Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for his “cavalier approach to international diplomacy”?

Ahhh…just seen this from Guest Who….maybe James O’Brien will tear into Allen as he seems to have done to Marr… awkward times ahead in the BBC canteen…

Isn’t the question itself irresponsible? Her family, the FO & her employer concur that she was on holiday. Only the Iranian regime disagreed until Johnson & Gove opened their mouths. Marr must have known this. https://t.co/xnBgMBCqiY

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) November 12, 2017

That was in response to this…the Sun also stirring things…And the response from a Scots Nat [no doubt trying to deflect from Salmond’s love-in with Press TV]

Why did Marr ask this? Is he part of the save Bojo plot or just another natural BBC Tory hack at heart?

— Cailean Donnchadh (@CokieDee62) November 12, 2017

Like rats in a sack.

The BBC keeps saying that Boris said he thought she was teaching in Iran at the time…he did not…he made no mention of a time or a location for her activities he merely said…

“When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it,” he said.

He added: “Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, nor her family, has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”

She was arrested for activities she had supposedly engaged in whilst in the UK working for the BBC….and I note the sister-in-law said she had no idea why she was arrested and yet the family know perfectly well why…as they made clear previously….

British-Iranian aid worker sentenced to jail for ‘cooperation with BBC’ – family

The family of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been sentenced to five years in jail in Iran on undisclosed charges, said she has been accused by a Revolutionary Court of acting against national security by cooperating with the BBC.

The family said that at the appeal hearing two new accusations have been raised against her: being the head of recruitment for the BBC Persian service, and knowingly being married to a British spy.

Speaking in response to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s jail sentence, Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service Group, said on Monday:

“Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has never worked for BBC Persian. She worked briefly [err… 18months] for BBC Media Action, our international development charity, in a junior administrative capacity.”

Funny how the BBC always, always avoids mentioning that.

The BBC is headlining with the amazing news that a ‘Labour’ politician wants Boris to resign for his comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.  Of course they don’t tell us that he is Labour…just that he is the Mayor of London….the same mayor of London that told Muslims that to cooperate with the police on anti-terror issues would  make them ‘Uncle Toms’. Maybe he should resign…..maybe the BBC should ask him about his comments [lol] or that he campaigned ‘as a Muslim’ for the Mayorship whilst declaring that Zac Goldsmith was a racist dogwhistler for raising the issue of Islamic extremism and Khan’s close relationship with some extremist speakers….never mind that Goldsmith never mentioned that Khan was a Muslim, just that he kept unsavoury company…it was Khan, as said, who campaigned on the Muslim ticket.

Of course Boris was probably accurate about what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been doing, when she worked for the BBC’s Media Action…he had of course been briefed that this was the case by his staff.  He probably should not have said what he did as the result could have been foreseen.  Note though that the Independent reported his comments without putting any significance on them at all and in fact praised Boris…..until the anti-Boris lobby started to ramp up the rhetoric…..absolutely no flicker of recognition from the Independent that Boris had said anything untoward…..

Boris Johnson has finally condemned Iran’s detention of British citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and offered to visit her in prison.  Speaking to a committee of MPs, Mr Johnson attacked both Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s conviction for spying as a mockery of justice and her treatment by the authorities in Tehran.

“When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it,” he said.

He added: “Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, nor her family, has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”

Mr Johnson was told that an MP had been informed she could visit the dual British-Iranian national if she wished and asked if he would make the trip, replying: “Of course.”

Note that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was already facing an increased sentence which the BBC etc fail to mention when they tell us Boris’ words will condemn her to a life behind bars for years more….

Last month, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told she could face 16 more years behind bars after the Iranian courts reopened her case and added three charges.

Look at the husband’s reaction then…

Responding to Mr Johnson’s comments, Mr Ratcliffe said: “I warmly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s condemnation of Nazanin’s treatment by the Iranian authorities to date. He is right – her case is a mockery of justice, and an abuse of Iranian and international law.

“I thank him for his offer to visit Nazanin and check that she is OK.”

Mr Ratcliffe also clarified that at the time of her arrest his wife had simply been on holiday with Gabriella, visiting her parents and other family members in Iran.

Mr Ratcliffe explained that Mr Johnson’s comment about his wife having taught journalism was a in fact a reference to her first graduate job eight years ago when she was an assistant at BBC Media Action, the corporation’s international development charity.

He said that his wife had never actually taught journalists but instead had simply made travel arrangements for tutors on an international journalism course.

No outrage, but an admittal that she was part of the system that taught journalists, the BBC’s Media Action [a soft power organisation designed to undermine and subvert undemocratic or authoritarian regimes like Iran’s]…the Iranians unlikely to make a distinction between teachers and those who facilitate their job.

Dimbleby on Any Questions presided over the usual BBC biased audience who repsonded with  great cheering when asked if Boris should be sacked.

Just  shame that genuine, contextualised, nuanced journalism is beyond the BBC these days and a baying mob of left-wing Corbynistas is running the show now.  They don’t give a damn about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, they just want to politicise and weaponise her imprisonment in order to ‘get Boris’.  The more they attack Boris the more the iranians will tak ethe opportunity to dmaage him as well by ‘sabre-rattling’ about how they will treat Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe….the anti-Boris mob are doing the Iranian’s work for them…..they would love to see their politiciking end in the fall of Boris….a famous victory.  The BBC et al are helping in that, doing Iran’s work for it.

Boris was esentially right you just wouldn’t know it from listening to the BBC…who also must owe a duty of care to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as she is in prison for working for them.  Maybe Lord Hall Hall should resign?

 

Tehran’s prosecutor general has said that a letter from David Cameron pleading for the release of a British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail term in Iran on charges relating to national security was “confirmation that she had links with the UK government”.  Guardian Oct 2017 [why no fuss?]

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s work for the BBC put her in danger.  The BBC doesn’t want you to know this.  It misdirects all the blame towards Boris Johnson instead.

The BBC are out to get Boris and behead the Brexit Leave campaign….as are his fellow Tories…who are Remoaners….

This is appalling. In "normal" times Boris Johnson wld have been sacked long ago. https://t.co/aHaIMIn6j3

— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) November 7, 2017

Boris apparently made a gaff when making a statement to the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee last week…

“When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it,” he said.

He added: “Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, nor her family, has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”

The question is of course, one we don’t see the BBC asking, who told Boris that she was ‘teaching people journalism’?

There is a very good reason the BBC doesn’t ask because it opens up a whole can of worms…about the BBC’s role in this.  Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action, both organisations whose mission is to subvert regimes around the world that they do not like and turn them into democratic, liberal, progressive Western type states using Journalism as the tool to do that…’soft power’….training journalists to oppose governments and to stir up and empower the people to take action against their governments.  Any wonder countries like Iran try to shut down BBC services and are highly suspicious of people linked to these organisations?  Imagine if Saudia Arabia were training journalists in the UK to spread the message that Islam and Sharia were the only moral and ethical forms of society and that Western democratic societies were decadent and ungodly…would we accept that?  Oh hang on…

Iran really dislikes them and constantly harasses anyone connected to the BBC….

Several employees of an Iranian technology news website, including bloggers, have been given long jail terms for alleged links to the BBC.

Iranian authorities said this year that some of the employees had participated in projects run by the BBC and in its training courses, and received funds deriving from London. The Guardian understands at least one of the detainees was among the trainees of an award-winning journalism development programme run by the BBC World Service Trust from 2006 to 2010, called ZigZag.

BBC appeals to UN over Iran’s crackdown on journalists

The BBC will say it has no journalists in Iran but it sends ‘them’ over the airwaves into Iran to subvert the regime [and yet it complains about Russian interference in US democracy!]…

About 140 employees work for BBC Persian from outside Iran. The TV channel, which is broadcast from London, is loathed by the Iranian establishment and banned inside Iran, but millions of people, hungry for news not reported by the state-run channels, watch it via illegal satellite dishes.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a dual-national and thus the Iranians, who do not recognise dual nationality [to them she is Iranian], consider her supposed actions to be sedition….

“In 2014-2015, the intelligence service of the Revolutionary Guards in Kerman province identified and arrested members of one of the groups that during the Sedition conducted activities against the security of the country by designing websites and carrying out campaigns in the media,” Movahed said. “Some of the group were outside Iran, including the suspect Nazanin Zaghari.”

Boris you may think was briefed fully on the subject by his staff.  Where might they have got the information?  From her family perhaps?  From Reuters January 2017:

British-Iranian aid worker sentenced to jail for ‘cooperation with BBC’ – family

The family of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been sentenced to five years in jail in Iran on undisclosed charges, said she has been accused by a Revolutionary Court of acting against national security by cooperating with the BBC.

The family said that at the appeal hearing two new accusations have been raised against her: being the head of recruitment for the BBC Persian service, and knowingly being married to a British spy.

Speaking in response to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s jail sentence, Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service Group, said on Monday:

“Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has never worked for BBC Persian. She worked briefly [err… 18months] for BBC Media Action, our international development charity, in a junior administrative capacity.”

From the Guardian October 2017:

Dolatabadi added that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s work training journalists at the BBC was behind her conviction, saying that she ran an online course that trained participants in encryption. The BBC’s Persian service is loathed by the Iranian establishment, which considers it a subversive arm of British intelligence service MI6.

“She ran a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran.

“The training included how to use anonymous emails, how to create complex and long passwords as well as how to use encryption software.”

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the elite forces responsible for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest, had previously accused her of orchestrating a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was charged with offences related to demonstrations in 2009:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 38-year-old mother, had already been sentenced to five years in prison for participating in anti-regime demonstrations in 2009, and last week was hit with further charges, carrying a possible 16-year prison term.

“These charges are linked to her work at BBC Media Action and at the Thomson Reuters Foundation,” said Thomson Reuters Foundation director Monique Villa.

“The accusation states that her charity work was a screen to overthrow the Iranian regime,” she added.

“This is a complete invention as the Thomson Reuters Foundation doesn’t work in Iran and has no programme or dealings with Iran.”

It is interesting that the BBC avoids all mention that the charges against her are linked to her employment with the BBC’s Media Action….it just doesn’t mention this…not a word today on the radio nor in any of the numerous reports on this issue….merely stating that she once worked for Media Action but making no connection between her imprisonment and that.

The BBC was happy however to drag in as many anti-Boris talking-heads as possible…we had James Kirkup, a Remainer and not a Boris fan (Boris’s nasty politics would hurt the Tories and Britain) who claimed Boris was unsackable as a ‘Leave’ big hitter….er…how then are Remainers Hammond and Rudd still in office after massively undermining May?  The we had Malcolm Rifkind, another Remainer, who laid into Boris accusing him of failing to read his briefing and mastering detail…I would have thought the opposite…he had read his briefing and that was what he quoted to the committee….not Boris’ fault…but note he hasn’t blamed whoever briefed him.  Then we had an ex-senior civil servant who almost word for word repeated what Rifkind had said but without the mocking laughter.

Adrian Chiles was desperately trying to get these people to say Boris should be sacked for his ‘crime’ and before he could do anymore ‘serious harm’….this is Chiles of course who is anti-Brexit and thinks UKIP is the British wing of the Nazi Party.

The chances are that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was involved in some way in training and supporting Iranian journalists both here in the UK and, via the Internet, in Iran when she worked for the BBC’s Media Action.  Hence Boris’ comment…..after all her family revealed this was the charge that the Iranians had brought against her.

So Boris is repeating what the family said who were repeating what the Iranians told them and so it was hardly news to the Iranians.  So unlikely, as the Iranians now admit, to have the slightest effect on her sentence.

But it was the BBC that put her in this position by nature of its work…..did they not warn her that she might be in danger of arrest if she visited Iran?  Where is the BBC’s duty of care?