Nazanin on trial
‘We’re hanging on to hope she’ll be back by Christmas’
One year has passed since I last visited grandparents John and Barbara Ratcliffe at their leafy Hampshire home. Christmas had been and gone, but stacks of gifts remained unwrapped behind the sofa; a Wendy house, toys for a toddler, and a new leather handbag from Selfridges. The couple had bought them for their daughter-in-law, Nazanin, 38, and three-year-old granddaughter, Gabriella, in the hope that they’d be home to unwrap them at Christmas.
When I go back this week, the presents are still there. Dustier than last year, but untouched in their wrapping paper, leaning against Gabriella’s doll’s house. They are still waiting to be opened by their rightful owners, and the Ratcliffes are praying that this Christmas will be the one where they are finally ripped open.
For more than 600 days, Nazanin, a dual British and Iranian citizen, has been locked up in an Iranian jail. She has been sentenced to five years for plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment – charges her family call “complete and utter nonsense”. They have repeatedly stressed that Nazanin, who works as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was only in Tehran with her baby daughter on holiday to visit her parents.
Ever since Nazanin was arrested in April 2016, Gabriella has been living with her Iranian grandparents. Though she is legally free to return home, it is her visits to her mother that are keeping Nazanin going, so the toddler remains in Tehran. Her father Richard, a 42-year-old accountant, has not seen her or Nazanin for more than 18 months. His relationship with Nazanin is restricted to weekly phone calls, while he is forced to parent Gabriella via Skype. He says she has turned from “an English baby into an Iranian little girl”.
“The change in Richard has been…” Barbara pauses. “His hair is greying. He’s quite agitated. He’s working on adrenalin. I suspect when it’s over, he’s going to go down big time.”
He is not the only one who has been affected. The Ratcliffe family in England, and the Zagharis in Iran, have all had their worlds ripped apart. “It’s devastated us all,” says Barbara, 67, simply. “I suspect everyone’s lives have stood still. Ours particularly. We’re saving all family celebrations for when they’re back. Naz isn’t here. She has a baby. They should be with us.”
There are also concerns the stress has affected Barbara’s health. The retired schoolteacher has always had a severely weakened immune system, and is currently recovering from a serious bout of sepsis. “Since Naz has been locked up, she’s been getting infections one after the other,” says John, a 68-year-old lawyer. Barbara looks away. “We’re not dwelling on that,” she says. “I don’t want the sympathy vote.”
For her, the hardest part was being hospitalised for two weeks, and being forbidden to campaign by her consultant. “I wanted to make badges in hospital, but I couldn’t,” she says. “So I made sure I told everyone I met about Nazanin, so they could spread the word. But I am taking it seriously this time because I’ve got to get better. I need to make sure I do, so I can be the English mummy for Gabriella, like Naz’s mum has been the Iranian mummy. I’m sure that if Nazanin and Gabriella came out, I’d be better.”
The couple are hoping they will not have to wait much longer for their girls’ homecoming, and it’s all down to Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary. Last month, he told a committee that Nazanin had been “teaching people journalism” in Iran – something she and her employers have strenuously denied. The criticism he faced over this was so immense that fellow MPS called for him to resign. But the family now hope he will do everything he can to secure Nazanin’s release – even if it is to save his own reputation, and he is believed to be travelling to Tehran this weekend.
“I certainly think his misuse of words has been a good thing for the campaign,” says John, who along with Richard, met Johnson last month. “Without doubt, he’s now much more active than before. He thought it might take more than one visit to get her out. If it doesn’t happen within three months, then we’re in proper trouble.”
The pressure for Johnson to secure Nazanin’s release is particularly high as this weekend she is due to go on trial for a new charge of spreading propaganda. The family have no idea where this has come from or what it could mean, and, though it could lead to a longer sentence, they are desperately hoping the Foreign Secretary will ensure Nazanin never has to complete it.
“I’m terrified of [the new trial], but as everything else is so full of lies and manipulation, do we worry?” asks Barbara. “Of course we do, but there’s a little part of me saying she’s still going to come home by Christmas. I’m hanging on to that. The only way we can move forward is [by] hoping all the time.”
There have been constant concerns about Nazanin’s mental health, and she has spoken about feeling suicidal. Her parents-in-law know how bad things are – “her phone calls to Ricky are often very, very tearful” – but their role is to try to give Nazanin a sense of normality.
They last spoke to her a couple of weeks ago – a conversation where Nazanin and Barbara, whom she calls “Mum”, discussed their shared love of craftwork. John pulls out a photo on his phone to show me a beaming Gabriella wearing a pretty woollen dress knitted by Nazanin. “She made it out of scraps in jail. We call it the freedom dress.”
“Naz is holding up,” says Barbara. “She’s doing it for her family and her baby, who’s no longer a baby. When I spoke to her she was being optimistic, and we talked about her coming out, and us meeting up the next Saturday to have afternoon tea in Selfridges.” She pauses. “It didn’t happen though. But it will.”
In the meantime, she is preparing for their homecoming, collecting tiered cake plates so she can throw a tea party “the minute Nazanin comes out”. She refuses to give up hope they’ll be here at Christmas and Boxing Day – Nazanin’s birthday. And Gabriella has made a Christmas wish, too. “She’s prayed to God to ask Mummy and Daddy to come out of prison so they can all be together,” says Barbara. “She doesn’t fully understand it all – she thinks Daddy’s in prison, too. It’s heartbreaking.”
The couple are quiet, and then they’re back to talking about how clever, wilful and gorgeous Gabriella is, with Barbara jumping up to find the latest doll she’s bought her. “I don’t think life will ever be the same again, but I’m hoping that once they’re back and we get back on track, it will be even better.”
John nods in agreement. “All we can do is keep going, and carry on.”
Richard Ratcliffe’s petition to call for the UK Government to work to free Nazanin can be signed on change.org
‘There’s a little part of me saying she’ll be home by Christmas’