September 23, 2022
After being freed by Iran and returned to her husband and daughter in London, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe is still adjusting to her new life of freedom.
Asked how she is finding her first three months of freedom, she said, “I think it’s just recovery at the moment.” She mentions that she’s avoided using the internet since coming back; technological advances which others take for granted have become alien to her.
Not surprisingly, her priority is her family. “My daughter is eight, she’s a different person.” Nazanin was still breast-feeding Gabriella when she was arrested in 2016. Her daughter and her husband are her focus. “Getting to know them, getting to know what is happening around me, trying to make life a bit more normal – I think that just takes a lot of time.”
While she was being interviewed by Varsity, the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, her daughter and husband were close by. The interviewer commented: “Words are not needed to understand: this is a family who never want to let go of each other again.”
In what may be seen as a warning for other expatriates, she said she was stunned to be arrested because she had taken precautions not to offend. “I was very, very careful — what to do, who to read, who to hang out with.” She laughs wryly, “And then in the end I was put in prison for six years.”
Even though she knew her husband was campaigning for her release, she never realized how much attention her case was getting until she came home and found she was famous. “I never even imagined that there was such a level of care for us,” she said, noting that, while she had phone calls with her husband, they were “very short phone calls, not long to talk about things.”
Her husband, Richard, had been told by British officials that he should be silent. He rejected that advice! And Nazanin says she agreed with him. “In my opinion, if a regime like Iran arrests you, just shout. It may not help you, but it will definitely not harm you. Just shout. Because there is a value in others knowing what’s happening to you. It might not get you out of prison on the same day, but it will definitely make your position stronger – do not keep quiet.”
