Tehran accuses British-Iranian mother of bid to overthrow regime

A British-Iranian woman who was arrested in Iran in April was accused on Wednesday of seeking to "overthrow the regime", according to a statement from the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was accused of being "involved in the soft overthrow of the Islamic republic through... her membership in foreign companies and institutions," the Mizan news agency quoted a regional guards branch as saying.

Earlier, the husband of the charity worker who has been held without charge in Iran since April called for her release at a rally outside the Iranian embassy in London.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, was arrested at Tehran airport on April 3 as she prepared to return to Britain with the couple’s daughter Gabriella after visiting family in Iran.

Gabriella, who turns two on Saturday, was born in Britain and has a British passport, which was confiscated by the Iranian authorities, leaving her stranded with her grandparents in Iran.

His wife, who spent the first 45 days in solitary confinement, was later transferred to Karman prison, 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from Tehran, although Ratcliffe said the family had not received “any news since Sunday.”

Britain’s Foreign Office has said it has raised the case “repeatedly and at the highest levels” and will continue to do so at “every available opportunity.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization coordinating training programs for journalists around the world.

With agencies