Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, why was she arrested, is she returning to the UK with her husband Richard Ratcliffe?

What is the latest on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, why was she arrested, is she free and is she returning to the UK? Here is everything you need to know about her.

Nazanin spent almost six years in an Iranian jail and the public have campaigned for her freedom, including her husband Richard, who set up an online petition to bring her back home to the UK, which was signed by 3.5 million supporters in 155 countries.

Here is everything you need to know about Nazanin and her fight for freedom so far.

Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?

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Nazanin is an Iranian-British citizen who was born and raised in Tehran, where she studied English literature at the University of Tehran before becoming an English teacher.

She worked as a translator in the relief effort for the Japan International Cooperation Agency following the 2003 Bam earthquake.

Nazanin then worked for the Inernational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and later moved on to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.

In 2007, she moved to the UK in Hampstead, north-west London, to study for a masters in communication management at London Metropolitan University after receiving a scholarship.

Supporters hold a photo of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during a vigil for the mother, who was imprisoned in Tehran outside the Iranian Embassy.  (Pic credit: Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images)Supporters hold a photo of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during a vigil for the mother, who was imprisoned in Tehran outside the Iranian Embassy.  (Pic credit: Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images)
Supporters hold a photo of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during a vigil for the mother, who was imprisoned in Tehran outside the Iranian Embassy. (Pic credit: Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images)
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She soon met her future husband, Richard Ratcliffe, through mutual friends and the couple married in August 2009 in Winchester.

Their daughter was born in June 2014 and Nazanin would regularly travel to Iran with her daughter so that her parents could see her. She would visit Iran on her Iranian passport, as required by the law, and used her British passport for travelling to all other countries.

From February 2009 to October 2010, Nazanin worked for the BBC World Service, then worked at the Thomson Reuters Foundation as a project coordinator before being promoted to project manager.

Why was Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrested?

Nazanin reunited with her family for Nowruz, which is the Iranian New Year celebration, with her 22-month-old daughter on March 17, 2016.

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As she and her daughter were about to board a flight back to the UK on April 3, 2016, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard arrested her at the Imam Khomeini Airport and as a result, her daughter’s British passport was confiscated, but later returned, and she remained detained in Iran under the care of her grandparents so she was able to visit her mum.

According to Amnesty International, it is thought that Nazanin was arrested due to the 2014 imprisonment of multiple Iranian technology news website employees. She was accused of plotting against the Iranian government, which she has denied, and was sentenced to five years in jail, where she spent four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one under house arrest.

In March 2020, Nazanin was temporarily released as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the nation. Instead of being detained in jail, she was kept under house arrest and she was handed an additional one year in jail in April 2021, which banned her from leaving Iran for a year.

According to her lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, Nazanin was imprisoned for that additional year on a charge of ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ for being involved in a protest in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009. There was an appeal against this second sentencing, but it was thrown out in October 2021.

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She was unable to see her daughter throughout her ordeal and after three years in the company of her grandparents, her daughter, Gabriella, then aged five, was allowed to return to her father in the UK in October 2019. However, at the time of Nazanin’s furlough from prison, the family would speak virtually for four to five hours a day.

Where is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe now? Is she returning to the UK?

On March 15, 2022, Nazanin’s British passport was returned to her which was announced by Hamstead and Kilburn MP, Tulip Siddiq, on Twitter.

More recently, the politician announced that Nazanin and fellow detainee Anousheh Ashoori are both heading to the Tehran airport to leave the country.

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Labour MP Tulip Siddiq tweeted: “Nazanin is at the airport in Tehran and on her way home. I came into politics to make a difference, and right now I’m feeling like I have. More details to follow. #FreeNazanin”

According to Iranian state media, the UK has ‘settled a long-overdue debt’ of roughly £400 million to Tehran.

In the early morning of Thursday, March 17, Nazanin reunited with her husband and daughter. Tulip Siddiq shared the emotional embrace between Nazanin, Richard and Garbriella on Twitter with the hashtag NazaninIsFree.

Tulip tweeted a picture of Nazanin on a plane back to the UK, where she will reunite with her husband and their daughter.

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Sir Keir Starmer: “For Nazanin, for Richard, and their daughter, this is an incredible moment after so much anguish.

The Labour leader told reporters in Huddersfield: “The courage that they have shown over so many years, I’ve met Richard many times - I know, I can feel what this will mean for him, for Nazanin, for their daughter and their family.

“My emotion, I think, will be the emotion of families across the whole of the country which is just so pleased for him.

“There will be questions of course, for other people to answer, but at the moment I’m so pleased for them as a family that this incredible moment appears to have come about and I think the British public - all of us - will just be wishing them all the very best after the unimaginable ordeal that they’ve been through.”

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