Boris Johnson, as UK Foreign Secretary in 2017, stated that Nazanin Zaghari- Ratcliffe was "simply teaching people journalism" while in Iran, contradicting her claim of being there on holiday to visit family.
This remark was made during testimony to a Commons committee and was seized by Iranian authorities as evidence of propaganda activities, potentially prolonging her detention. Johnson later clarified in Parliament that the UK government believed she was on holiday when arrested and urged her release on humanitarian grounds after speaking with Iran's foreign minister.
Johnson expressed "deep sense of anguish" for Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family in 2019, blaming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard while defending his role. Upon her 2022 release, he described himself as "thrilled" but downplayed his earlier comments' impact; she later told him directly they had a "lasting" effect during her imprisonment, though he did not explicitly apologize.
