September 21, 2018
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman in prison in Iran, has been given a three-day furlough for the first time in the 2-1/2 years she has been jailed.
Nazanin, 40, spent the time with her parents and her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, in Damavand, northeast of Tehran, the Free Nazanin campaign based in London confirmed.
On her return to prison, she collapsed and was sent to the prison hospital after a suspected anxiety attack. Friends in prison said she was unable to move her arms and legs.
She was called the morning of August 23 while still in her night clothes and told she had 10 minutes to get ready to leave Evin Prison.
Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, who is a dual British-Iranian national, “dressed and packed quickly as her cellmates gathered round,” the campaign said.
While she was out, her husband and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt appealed to the Iranian government to allow her to remain free longer, but Evin Prison put her back in her cell after three days.
She had been promised she would be granted a temporary release a number of times over the past few weeks, but had not held out much hope of it happening.
As she left Evin, she said: “It will be just awesome for Gabriella to have mummy home finally. We can play with her dolls house, and she can show me her toys. The thought of brushing her hair, and giving her a bath, of being able to take her to the park, and feed her, and sleep next to her—it just kills me. It is still so hard to believe.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all when it was mentioned two weeks ago.”
Nazanin also said, “I was so emotional to see my grandmother today. I cried so much. I felt so overwhelmed. My dad’s home is not my home—but it is so much better than prison.”
She said, “People in the ward were so excited. They sang songs and danced. I baked for them in celebration. It felt like this really could be the beginning of the end.”
UK Foreign Secretary Hunt tweeted that it was “really good news” and credited it to “tireless campaigning” by her husband and friends. He promised to continue to push for Nazanin’s permanent release.
Evin guards searched every item she took with her before allowing her to leave the prison and told her she could not call her family from the prison, but could do so from the gate—where she was then told the phones were not working.
She was told she could not wait outside the prison, so crossed over a bridge and asked the family of another prisoner to borrow their phone to call her brother who was in Tehran. He rushed over and collected her within 10 minutes.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, is in London. He has said that Iran has refused to grant him a visa to visit his wife and daughter.
Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not allowed to conduct any media interviews while on release, or visit the grounds of any foreign embassy.
She and her father both promised that she would obey those rules.
Namazi dad on medical release
Eighty-two-year-old Baquer Namazi has been on medical furlough for some time “for being sick and in advanced age,” his lawyer, Mehrdad Qorbani, told the New York-based Center For Human Rights In Iran (CHRI).
Namazi, former governor general of Khuzestan province during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, is among dozens of Iranians with dual citizenship who have been imprisoned in Iran.
The dual citizen of Iran and the United States traveled to Tehran in 2015 weeks after his son, Siamak Namazi, was detained and imprisoned.
According to Baquer Namazi’s Iranian lawyer, he has been on medical furlough for an extended amount of time. “I do not exactly remember the date of Mr. Namazi’s release, but he has been out for quite a long period of time,” Qorbani told CHRI.
