August 09, 2019
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been transferred back to prison from a hospital mental health ward that she described as “proper torture” and not the medical care she was promised.
She had been kept in solitary confinement and chained to a hospital bed, according to her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who spoke to her by telephone after she was returned to Evin Prison. He said there were four male guards outside her room and one female guard inside 24 hours a day while she was in the hospital.
The shift came amid heightened tensions between the UK and Iran over the seizures by each of tankers flagged by the other.
She was moved from Evin to the mental health ward of Iman Khomeini hospital in Tehran upon the command of health authorities. But she was returned to prison after breaking out of her bindings and telling security guards she was at risk of self-harming if she remained in the hospital, her husband said.
In comments to him, she said: “They did all they could to me—handcuffs, ankle cuffs, in a private room 2 meters by 3 meters, with thick curtains, and the door closed all the time. I wasn’t allowed to leave the room, as I was chained to the bed. It was proper torture. It was tough, and I was struggling…. There was no justification for it. I am cross at them. I am not scared. The amount of scars I got. I have been put through hell.”
Her husband said she was discharged at her request and at the request of a hospital doctor after six days in the mental ward. She was allowed to see her mother and daughter on her last day in the hospital.
She was told she had been admitted to the hospital for a 10-day assessment. She received psychotherapy sessions, had physical checks and was prescribed some medications, the campaign group advocating for her said. There has as yet been no word on the results of any of the tests.
The 40-year-old woman was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport while traveling with her young daughter in April 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spying, a charge she vehemently denies.