AID WORKER’S NIGHTMARE

APRIL 2016 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is arrested at Tehran airport after visiting her parents with her baby daughter.

SEPTEMBER She is jailed for five years after being convicted of spying. NOVEMBER She begins hunger strike. APRIL 2017 The aid worker loses an appeal against her sentence.

NOVEMBER Then foreign secretary Boris Johnson tells a parliamentary committee that she was working in Tehran training journalists at the time of her arrest – when she was really on holiday. His comments are cited as proof that she was engaged in ‘propaganda against the regime’.

LATE 2017 Her husband Richard Ratcliffe says his wife has seen a medical specialist after finding breast lumps and is ‘on the verge of a nervous breakdown’.

AUGUST 2018 Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is given temporary release from prison and her husband says it feels like ‘home is one step closer’. However, she returns to jail three days later. JANUARY 2019 She begins another hunger strike in protest at her treatment in jail. MARCH She is given diplomatic protection by the UK Government. JUNE Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe begins another hunger strike lasting 15 days. Her husband joins her in solidarity and camps outside the Iranian embassy in London. OCTOBER 2019 The couple’s daughter Gabriella returns to the UK after three years living with her grandparents in Tehran. FEBRUARY 2020 Mr Ratcliffe says he believes his wife has contracted coronavirus. MARCH 2020 Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is released to her parents’ house, but is forced to wear an ankle tag that prevents going more than 300 metres from the home. SEPTEMBER She appears in court in Tehran to face a new charge. MARCH 2021 Sentence comes to an end, but she is summoned to new court hearing for allegedly spreading anti- Iranian propaganda.