Actor Emma Thompson has called on the UK government to do more to bring home Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman held in Iran since April 2016. Speaking at a rally in north London, Thompson, suffering from pneumonia and helped to speak by her husband, actor Greg Wise, urged Boris Johnson to 'deal with the problem he’s so seriously exacerbated'.

The foreign secretary recently suggested that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, which led to fears that her sentence would be increased.

Thompson added: 'The screw is twisting more and more and her physical and mental health is deteriorating to such a degree now that I think we are in a very urgent situation.'

The rally took place before a march to the Shia Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale, to hand in a 'mothers' open letter' to the Iranian government asking for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release from prison in Tehran.



• Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe speaks to supporters at London rally by phone