CARDIGAN and North Pembrokeshire Amnesty International group held a vigil outside the Guildhall Cardigan on Saturday, October14 to raise awareness of the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Nazanin is a British-Iranian citizen who is imprisoned in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, Iran. She was arrested last year at the airport in Iran as she was about to return to the UK after visiting her family in Iran.

In September 2016 she was sentenced to five years imprisonment because of her work with a charity, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and the BBC, which a judge claimed were "specifically working to overthrow the regime."

Her 22-month-old daughter, Gabriella, who has British citizenship only, had her passport confiscated and remains in Iran in the care of her grandparents. Now Nazanin faces an additional 16 years behind bars, the news coming just one month before she was eligible for early release.

Nazanin's husband, Richard, who has not been allowed to see his wife or daughter has been campaigning tirelessly for her release.

Group members were joined by Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion, and Nazanin's sister-in-law, Rebecca Ratcliffe, who had travelled from Cardiff to support the group who gathered many signatures on a letter to the UK Government to ask them to prioritise requests for Nazanin's release and return of her and Gabriella to the UK.