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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian national who was detained in Iran for six years, finally returned home to the UK and was reunited with her family on March 17, 2022.
She was arrested in Iran in 2016 for allegedly spying and plotting to overthrow the government, charges that were consistently denied by the detainee. Following several years of struggle, Zaghari-Ratcliffe finally landed on British soil in the early hours of Thursday.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to Twitter to confirm her release and said that he was delighted to see her reunite with her family.
Hampstead MP Tulip Siddiq also previously confirmed that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s passport has been returned and that she was successfully flown back to the UK to her husband and seven-year-old daughter Gabriella.
Prior to her landing, Nazanin Zaghari’s husband Richard Ratcliffe spoke to Reuters about his wife’s return:
“It’s just a relief, the idea that we can go back to being a normal family, that we don’t have to keep fighting, that this long journey is almost over.”
The British-Iranian mother rushed into her family’s arms after landing at the RAF Brize Norton base. Richard’s sister also posted a picture of the family and said that Gabriella finally got “her mummy and daddy back.”
In addition to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, fellow detainee Anoosheh Ashoori was also reunited with his family. However, a third detainee, Morad Tahbaz, is yet to return home even though he has been released from the Iranian prison on furlough.
Everything to know about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a 43-year-old British-Iranian woman who was arrested and detained in Iran for six years. Prior to her detention, she resided in Hampstead, London with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella.
She was born in Tehran and earned a degree in English Literature from Tehran University. Following her graduation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe started working as an English teacher.
According to The Scotsman, she also worked for several charity organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Federation of Red Cross, Red Crescent Societies, and the Japanese International Co-operation Agency.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe first moved to the UK to study Communication Management at London Metropolitan University on a scholarship. She then started working with international development charity BBC Media Action and joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation as a project manager in 2011.
What happened to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
In March 2016, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe visited Iran with her daughter Gabriella to spend Nowruz (Iranian New Year) with her parents. On April 3, 2016, she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards at the Imam Khomeini International Airport.
She was then arrested on alleged charges of hosting a “foreign-linked hostile network” in Iran.
As per The Independent, the country’s prosecutor-general mentioned that authorities accused Zaghari-Ratcliffe of running a Persian online journalism course for the BBC with the aim of “recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran.”
She was also accused of spying and plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family strongly denied the allegations made against her.
Meanwhile, BBC Media Action and Thomson Reuters Foundation also confirmed that she was not involved in any work assignment and was only present in Iran for a holiday.
Unfortunately, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement while undergoing major interrogation during the first few months of her arrest. On September 9, 2016, the British-Iranian national was sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran's Revolutionary Court.
Although officials mentioned that she was arrested on “legitimate grounds,” no detailed cause of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s conviction was made available to the public. Meanwhile, then-22-months-old Gabriella was left in the care of her maternal grandparents before returning to the UK in 2019.
Following Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest, her husband Richard began campaigning in Britain, urging then-Prime Minister Theresa May and Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei to free his wife:
“Nazanin is not being held for anything she has personally done. It is deeply misleading by both governments to suggest or even half imply otherwise.”
In November 2016, Zaghari-Ratcliffe began the first of a series of hunger strikes demanding her freedom and questioning the British government’s action towards securing her release.
In April 2017, she lost her final appeal to overturn her prison sentence in Iran’s supreme court. In August 2017, Richard claimed that his wife was in a “fragile state” and diagnosed with advanced depression due to the situation.
In October 2017, Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi claimed that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had connections with the UK government and was allegedly training journalists at the BBC and teaching them encryption with the aim of spreading propaganda against Iran.
In February 2018, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family accused authorities of torturing her in prison. Her husband also alleged that she was being detained in relation to the dispute about Britain’s longstanding £400m debt to Iran.
In August 2018, newly appointed UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged to put in all possible efforts to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. That same month, the latter was reunited with her daughter on a temporary three-day release for the first time since her imprisonment.
In January 2019, Zaghari-Ratcliffe started a three-day hunger strike to protest against her treatment and lack of medical care in prison. In June 2019, both Nazanin and her husband started a 15-day hunger strike to protest against the former’s detention and called for her release.
In January 2020, Zaghari-Ratcliffe suffered a panic attack after the US assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. In February 2020, she was suspected to have contracted COVID-19 but refused test facilities in prison.
In March 2020, the 43-year-old was given another temporary release from prison amid the coronavirus pandemic. However, she was required to wear an ankle tag and barred from moving beyond 300 meters from her parents’ house.
The temporary leave was later extended and gave rise to hopes of a clemency deal. Unfortunately, in September 2020, authorities announced that Zaghari-Ratcliffe would face another trial over a new unspecified charge.
In 2021, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe completed her five-year jail term, spending four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one year at her parents’ residence in house arrest. However, she was sentenced to another year in prison in April 2021.
She was also banned from leaving Iran on charges of allegedly spreading propaganda against the government in relation to a London protest she attended 12 years ago. In October 2021, Zaghari-Ratcliffe lost an appeal against her second prison sentence in Iran.
However, on March 15, 2022, authorities finally returned her British passport and released her from prison. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe then returned to the UK and was reunited with her husband and daughter.
