Jailed mother ‘so proud of her native country’
Boris Johnson has admitted he ‘could have been clearer’ in his comments about British woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe but insisted they could provide no justification for lengthening her detention in Iran. Georgina Stubbs profiles a mother jailed on charg
ABRITISH-IRANIAN woman imprisoned in Tehran was always proud of her native country before her detention, her husband said.
Charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been jailed for five years for allegedly plotting to topple the government in Tehran, but details of the charges against her have been kept secret.
The 38-year-old from Hampstead, north-west London, who has dual nationality was arrested at Tehran Airport on April 3, 2016 with her daughter Gabriella who is now three.
She has always insisted she was not working for Thomson Reuters Foundation in Iran at the time of her arrest, but was visiting the country to show Gabriella to her grandparents.
During her detention, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been hauled before the courts at least four times, her husband Richard said.
She has also endured eight months in solitary confinement, which left her in a “very vulnerable place”, interrogations and cruel contradictory messages, Mr Ratcliffe added.
He told the Press Association that his wife, who was returned to the main section of Evin prison in December last year, is “pretty up and down” – often getting angry and frustrated.
In March her sister-in-law Rebecca Jones, who lives in Cardiff, told the Western Mail she was starting to suffer physically during her captivity.
“She now has problems with her left shoulder, neck and left arm,” said the Cwmbran GP. “She had a visit from a neurologist who wanted her to go to hospital but every prison has rejected that, though negotiations are ongoing. She’s having a lot of panic attacks, anxiety and restless nights which are affecting her physical health as well.
“In many ways things have got better for her but I think it has hit home that her release might not be imminent any time soon.
“Of course she has been in prison with women who haven’t been released for seven or eight years.”
Before her detention, Mr Ratcliffe said his wife was “really, really proud” of Iran.
“That is one of the really hard parts of this, she is such, I mean all Iranians are quite patriotic, so sort of proud of Iran and always keen for us to go there and to show it off,” he said.
“Every time we went there we would go to different town in Iran.”
He added: “The Iran she knew and she loved, is not the Iran that has treated her this way. That is one of the hardest things.”
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and eventually went on to study English Literature at the capital’s university, before becoming an English teacher.
Following a devastating earthquake in Iran in 2003, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe went to work as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency.
She then went on to work for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe came over to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study for a masters in communication management.
It was a month after her arrival in the UK that she met her future husband Richard through mutual friends.
Describing their first date he said they “clicked” and he felt like he had “come home”.
The pair were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their first child, Gabriella, was born in June 2014, something Mr Ratcliffe said changed both their outlooks on life.
“It was very important for Nazanin to keep going back to Iran to show her daughter to her parents ... before she would always go once a year, but she tried to go twice after,” he said.
She began working at Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2011 as a project co-ordinator before taking on the role of a project manager.
Mr Ratcliffe, describing his wife, said she is very houseproud, meticulous and tidy, and probably would not appreciate the current state of the bathroom.
He added: “She really enjoys sewing and making clothes for Gabriella – in prison she has been knitting her jumpers and things.
“When she was in Iran she used to do calligraphy, and now she does watercolours ... she is quite creative, Gabriella is very proud at how good her mummy is at drawing.”
He said his wife has a “pretty keen sense of justice”, and is “outraged” by what has happened to her and her daughter with her child, who is being raised by her grandparents in Iran, “denied both her parents for so long”.
“She is very maternal,” he said. “Always very devoted to Gabriella.”
Mr Ratcliffe revealed one of the things his wife wants to do the most when she is released is have another child.
“That is probably what she is most looking forward to – being a family again,” he said.
Since her return to the main section of the prison, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been allowed to see her daughter twice a week for 45 minutes at a time.
Mr Ratcliffe, who has not seen his daughter in the months since due to her being kept in Iran, said this has made a “huge difference” to his wife.
“It is very important for their relationship, and very important for Gabriella to know that she has not been abandoned,” he said.