Who Is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe? British-Iranian Detained In Iran For Over Five Years

Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained in Iran for more than five years as a suspect for plotting against the Iranian government. She was detained at an Iranian airport in 2016 while she was traveling back to the UK with her daughter. According to reports, her British passport has been returned after more than five years of custody.

The lawyer of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is hopeful with some expected good news about her release. The detainee had her UK passport returned recently. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also mentioned that the government wants her back home as soon as possible saying, "Everybody wants Nazanin home, we've been working on that for a long, long time, I do not want to do anything to interrupt conversations right now."

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained by the Iranian government in 2016 for five years reportedly accusing her of plotting against the Tehran regime and was sentenced to another year's detention in April 2021 on the charges of spreading propaganda. She served the final year for her five-year sentence at her parents' home in Tehran, Iran.

Richard Ratcliffe, her husband, has been protesting ever since her detention for her release. "The Iran she knew and she loved is not the Iran that has treated her this way. That is one of the hardest things," he told PA News Agency earlier in an interview.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has always denied the claims made against her, had taken her daughter Gabriella to meet her grandparents in Iran and had been arrested on her trip back to UK.

Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian dual national who was detained in Iran in 2016. The 43-year-old used to live with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and daughter Gabriella in London before her arrest in Iran. She worked at BBC Media Action as a charity worker before she started working at Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2011 as a project-coordinator and later as a project manager.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is born and brought up in Tehran and completed her education in English Literature from Tehran University. She became an English teacher after completing her education. In 2003, she started working as a translator in relief at Japanese International Co-operation Agency. She has also worked at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and World Health Organisation as a communications officer.

In 2007, she moved to UK after scoring a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study communication management. Zaghari-Ratcliffe met her future husband through some common friends after she spent a month in UK. The two got married in 2009 in Winchester and welcomed their daughter Gabriella in 2014.

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