Boris Johnson is under fresh pressure over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after Iranian state television cited his erroneous statement about the jailed British-Iranian woman as “an inadvertent confession” that she was spying in Iran.

Iran’s national television service (IRIB), whose programmes of this type are sanctioned by senior officials, remained defiant in the face of efforts by the British foreign secretary to rectify his mistake concerning Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail term.

Last week, Johnson gave a misleading statement to a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “simply teaching people journalism”, prompting fears that it would be used to justify her sentence for spying. Her family say she was in Iran on holiday.

Play Video 0:52 Boris Johnson accepts his remarks about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'could have been clearer' – video

Johnson has since reluctantly apologised and admitted he could have been clearer on the matter, but the IRIB programme said he had failed to make up for his error with the judicial authorities in Iran. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family said assurances given this week by the foreign secretary do not look sufficient.



He held a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, earlier this week. However, the Iranian government can do little as the conservative-dominated judiciary is independent of the executive branch.



On Thursday, the Foreign Office in London said: “The Iranian foreign minister assured the foreign secretary that his earlier remarks at the foreign affairs committee will have no bearing on Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case and that he remains committed to working with the UK government to secure her release on humanitarian grounds.

“The foreign secretary made clear in parliament that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was visiting Iran on holiday and that was the sole purpose of her visit.”

On Wednesday evening an IRIB news bulletin referred to Johnson’s comments as evidence that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was conducting illegal affairs in Iran. The Iranian judiciary’s news website also carried a news article on Wednesday with the headline: “Spy or human rights activist[?]”.

Hadi Nili (@HadiNili) #Iran stateTV welcomes @BorisJohnson's remarks ab Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (@FreeNazanin) as an "unintended confession of the UK gov ab the real plot” behind her trip to Iran & a “proof” of #IRGC's accusations against her.” via @NarimanGharib pic.twitter.com/ZaC1T8EVqA

The news broadcast, which was entitled “Confession”, said: “Mr Johnson’s inadvertent confession meant that [she] was teaching some Iranian journalists – it was a gaffe that can not be covered up. The sole sentence uttered from the mouth of the UK foreign secretary put the efforts of the British media [propaganda] in vain.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April last year when she and her young daughter, Gabriella, were about to return to the UK from Iran after what her husband has said was a family visit. Since then, she has spent most of her time in Evin prison in Tehran while Gabriella, three, has been in the care of her mother’s Iranian family.



Tehran’s prosecutor general said in October that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was being held because she ran “a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran”. She worked for BBC Media Action between February 2009 and October 2010 before moving to Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, as a project manager.



The five-minute broadcast on IRIB’s Channel 2 said Johnson’s comments revealed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s true activities and served as an antidote to propaganda by the UK media.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told the Guardian that his wife’s family in Iran were shocked when they saw the item on state TV. “Contrary to Zarif’s reassurances to Boris Johnson it feels like parts of the Iranian regime are still using the foreign secretary’s comments against Nazanin,” he said.

Prisoners at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where the Briton is held, are allowed to watch Channel 2. It was unclear whether she had watched the broadcast.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s MP, Tulip Siddiq, said in spite of repeated assurances from Johnson, Iran continued to use his words as fuel for their case against her.

“The Iranian state TV presenters’ words condemning Nazanin for false crimes are chilling,” Siddiq said. “I have repeatedly raised the importance of details and words with Boris Johnson, who seems unwilling or unable to deal with a case of this importance.”

The Labour MP added: “The country has put up with blunder after blunder from Boris Johnson over the years, but the joke has stopped. He is supposed to be the country’s top diplomat, but is instead a laughing stock. His role is to protect British citizens abroad, and he has failed in the gravest way. This is about a young mother’s life, and he must now resign.”

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The broadcast claimed that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had visited many countries including Georgia, Morocco and Lebanon and that her employer, Thomson Reuters Foundation, was a multinational company founded to promote western democracy. Monique Villa, Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO, said on Thursday that “Nazanin has never been a journalist, hence could never have trained journalists.”

“She was on holiday at the time of her arrest – it is correct that she has been to Lebanon, Georgia and Morocco to run the logistics of workshops organised by the foundation for local journalists,” she said. “None of these workshops were attended by Iranian journalists. Nazanin didn’t have any role in delivering the trainings and had no say in evaluating the work produced by the journalists trained.

Richard Ratcliffe said: “Following the foreign secretary’s phone call with foreign minister [Mohammad] Zarif, Nazanin was on the evening TV news in Iran. She was also on the front page of some of the Iranian newspapers. They repeated the earlier mistakes – quoting the foreign secretary as saying she was in fact working in Iran, but also noted that foreign minister Zarif had called the judiciary to ask for Nazanin’s release,.

“It remains important that the British embassy issues a statement in Farsi to the media in Iran to put an end to these official distortions. But the new focus on Nazanin’s injustice is a good thing. For too long her story has been kept in the shadows. For too long this has been allowed to fester. The good thing about this past week is that maybe she will fester no more.”

The IRIB programme dismissed the UK media coverage of her case as propaganda, adding: “Mr Johnson’s statement annulled all the claims in the past year made by British media who said that she was only visiting Iran for humanitarian reasons.”