UK Edition
Iranian state TV has released previously unseen footage of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest in Tehran, as part of a programme accusing the UK of trying to “infiltrate” the Islamic Republic through the BBC's Persian language channel.
Iran’s TV Channel 3 broadcast the moment the British-Iranian charity worker was taken aside for questioning by security officials at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.
The mother-of-one appears shocked but calm as she is approached by the official, who is filming the encounter using a hidden camera.
“You are not allowed to travel and you must come with us to the prosecutor's office, where you will hear about your accusations against you and your problem will then be solved,” the arresting officer tells Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, in footage which was posted on the Iranian judiciary’s website.
She replies in a quiet tone, asking if she would be allowed to ring someone and let them know that she has been arrested and will not be continuing her journey.
He tells her that she can do this at a later time.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was working at the time for the Thomson Reuters Foundation - a charitable arm of Thomson Reuters media company - was later convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to five and half years.
Despite being eligible for parole, she continues to be held at Evin prison in Tehran.
It is unclear what motivated Iran to release the footage after more than two and a half years, but it is thought authorities are unhappy with the recent attention Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case has received since her announcement last week that she is to go on a hunger strike in protest at her denial of medical care.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who marked her 40th birthday in prison on Boxing Day, has complained of lumps in her breasts and neural pain but has been denied access to a doctor.
Richard Ratcliffe, her husband, called the allegations made against his wife in the programme "malicious defamation", and said she was being used as leverage against the UK.
He described the Iranian state’s "drip feed of footage for domestic propaganda" as one its "most abusive practices".
The narrator of the 48-minute programme refers to her multiple times as a “soldier in the army of the counter-revolution at the service of the British intelligence agencies.”
“After the victory of the Islamic Revolution (in 1979) the entire western media was organised to discredit the newly revolutionary regime in Iran,” the narrator says.
The programme showed BBC payslips for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe dated to 2010 and claimed she was training journalists.
Her family and the BBC have said that she worked briefly for the broadcaster’s international development charity in an administrative position, but never had a role training journalists.
The programme also showed footage of Boris Johnson, former foreign secretary, wrongly telling the foreign affairs select committee that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Tehran training journalists when she was arrested.
She was in fact in the country with her infant daughter Gabriella visiting her mother.
Mr Johnson later clarified his comment, however the slip has been used by the Iranian government as prove of their claims against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Earlier this week, her MP, Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn), moved an urgent question in the House of Commons, saying Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's treatment has gotten "considerably worse" in the last two weeks.
"The truth is this is a matter of life and death. Tough rhetoric will not do anything,” she said of diplomatic attempts to free her.
"What we need is decisive action from our Government to make sure that my constituent Nazanin comes homes alive to West Hampstead and that is what I'm asking the minister - what action will he take to save this woman's life?"