Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and why was she imprisoned in Iran?

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British national detained in Iran for almost six years, is finally on her way home after having her passport returned by Tehran officials.

The British-Iranian mother and fellow detainee Anoosheh Ashoori both travelled to the capital’s airport on Wednesday morning, according to their lawyer, ending their nightmare detention in the Middle East.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local MP Tulip Siddiq had tweeted on Tuesday that she was optimistic the release was imminent but that the detainee was still at her family home in the Iranian capital, where she has been under house arrest since March 2020.

“I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back,” the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn wrote. “I will keep posting updates as I get them.”

She followed that on Wednesday with even brighter news: “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.”

Iran sentenced Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency – to five years in prison in September 2016 after accusing her of “plotting to topple the Iranian regime”, a charge she denies.

Her imprisonment has become a cause celebre ever since, with her husband Richard Ratcliffe tireless in his efforts to lobby the UK government to secure his wife’s release.

Mr Ratcliffe spent 21 days on hunger strike outside of the Foreign Office in London last November to draw attention to her ongoing plight.

While the new development is being cheered at home, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive Sacha Deshmukh has preached caution, responding on behalf of the organisation: “We sincerely hope these reports are correct. The detainees and their families have been suffering for years, and a resolution can’t come quickly enough.

“It’s been clear for a long time that the Iranian authorities have been targeting foreign nationals with spurious national security-related charges to exert diplomatic pressure. In the past we’ve had false dawn after false dawn over possible breakthroughs, so it’s only right to be cautious at the moment.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ordeal began after she visited the country in mid-March 2016 to spend time with family members for Nowruz (New Year), only to be detained on her way home at Imam Khomeini Airport on 3 April.

Her daughter Gabriella, then just 22 months old, was left to the care of her maternal grandparents living in Iran, only returning to the UK to be reunited with her father in October 2019.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was accused by the Iranian authorities of running “a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran”, according to the country’s prosecutor-general, speaking in Tehran in October 2017.

The allegation relates to her previous role working for the BBC World Service Trust, now rechristened BBC Media Action, between February 2009 and October 2010, contributing to a course undertaken by several employees of an Iran technology news website, for which they were subsequently imprisoned.

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, during his hunger strike in central London last year (Aaron Chown/PA)

The BBC denied the charge and said her imprisonment was based on a false premise anyway, as her role within the organisation had been that of a junior administrative assistant.

The Iranian government has never disclosed the precise nature of the crimes Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe is accused of having committed, although it insists she has been detained on legitimate grounds.

Mr Ratcliffe quickly got to work campaigning on her behalf from Britain, launching an online petition calling on then-prime minister Theresa May and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei to free her.

“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,” he said at the time. “We demand a clear statement from the foreign secretary to correct his mistake – in parliament and in Tehran at the earliest opportunity.”

What he got instead was a highly unhelpful intervention from then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who was was widely criticised for muddying the waters.

“When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it,” Mr Johnson told a foreign affairs committee on 1 November 2017.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures 2018 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugs her daughter Gabriella, in Iran after she was allowed to leave the Iranian prison, she is being held in, for three days. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Iranian authorities accuse her of plotting against the government. Her family denies this, saying says she was in Iran to visit family. Free Nazanin Campaign/AP Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella. Nazanin is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly plotting to overthrow Iran’s government. PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures June 2016 Richard Ratcliffe’s daughter Gabriella had her British passport confiscated and was stranded in Iran with her grandparents after her mother Nazanin was jailed. He left left a giant birthday card on the doorstep of the Iranian embassy in central London to mark her second birthday in June 2016. PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin has spent some of her prison sentence in solitary confinement. PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella. Family Handout Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures July 2016 Richard Ratcliffe delivering a letter of petition with his mother Barbara Ratcliffe and MP Tulip Siddiq, to 10, Downing Street on the 100th day of her detention, on July 12, 2016. Getty Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Supporters of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe held a vigil outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to mark her 707 days in captivity. Getty Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures January 2017 Richard Ratcliffe holds a ‘#Free Nazanin’ sign and candle during a vigil for for wife on January 16, 2017. The vigil, being held outside the Iranian Embassy in London marks one year since the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and other US-Iranian dual-nationals were released from prison in Iran. Getty Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin with her daughter Gabriella before they were detained by Iranian authorities. Change.org Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures September 2017 Gabriella, who is three-years-old in this picture, has now spent two years away from her mother. Richard Ratcliffe Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson meets with Richard Ratcliffe over Nazanin’s case. They meet just days after Johnson told a parliamentary committee that she was in Iran “training journalists”. WPA Pool/Getty Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Actor Emma Thompson braved pneumonia to support Richard Ratcliffe in leading demonstrators before a march in support of Nazanin in November. Reuters Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Richard Ratcliffe after the march said: ‘It is profoundly moving to see so many people here.’ REUTERS Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 A picture of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe shown on Iranian state TV as part of a report that made fresh allegations against her. They said she had been recruiting for banned broadcast services, as well as ‘opposition cyber teams’. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures December 2017 Iranian president Hassan Rouhani greets British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson at the presidential office in Tehran, Iran. Johnson visited Tehran to discuss the fate of detained Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. EPA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella. PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures December 2017 Photos of Richard Ratcliffe and his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on display at their home in north London. Mr Ratcliffe said he believed there was “still a chance” she may be released from an Iranian prison in time for a dream Christmas together. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures February 2018 Richard Ratcliffe delivers a petition and a letter addressed to the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to demand her release, at the Iranian Embassy in London on February 21, 2018. He also left support letters for his spouse in the country’s embassy, amid a visit by a deputy foreign minister. AFP/Getty Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures August 2018 Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt meeting Richard Ratcliffe. Hunt has pledged to do everything possible to secure the release of a charity worker jailed in Iran Jeremy Hunt/PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures August 2018 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugs her daughter Gabriella, in Iran after she was allowed to leave the Iranian prison, she is being held in, for three days. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Iranian authorities accuse her of plotting against the government. Her family denies this, saying says she was in Iran to visit family. PA

“Neither Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”

The careless statement that she was “teaching people journalism” reinforced the Islamic Republic’s bogus stance and was roundly criticised by the likes of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and London mayor Sadiq Khan and led to calls for Mr Johnson to resign.

He was indeed replaced as foreign secretary – only to return to lead the Conservative Party and secure a landslide victory in the December 2019 general election – while Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe languished in Evin prison, engaging in two hunger strikes that same year alongside her cellmate in protest at their being denied medical care.

Mr Ratcliffe has alleged that his wife’s freedom hinges on the interest rate accumulated on a £400m loan the UK still owes Tehran over a cancelled deal for 1,500 Chieftain tanks in the 1970s, a debt the current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said in December is “legitimate” and one Britain intends to pay.

He has also regularly raised concerns about Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s welfare, reguarly expressing fears she could suffer a nervous breakdown and might have been tortured behind bars.

In August 2018, she was indeed taken to a prison clinic after suffering a panic attack just days after being temporarily released to see her family.

She reportedly suffered another in January 2020 in response to the tense situation in Iran following the killing of top general Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike.