The incredible thing is that she had every right to rant and rage furiously, scream, wail, and spew venom about the hideous injustice she’s suffered, the torture and separation she’s endured.
Instead, at a press conference on Monday, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe calmly explained that she’d found it hard to trust foreign secretaries after so many let her down.
“What’s happened now should have happened six years ago. I shouldn’t have been in prison for six years,” she said, not even raising her voice.
Within hours, the appalling hashtags #sendherback and #ungrateful were trending on Twitter.
Angela from Worcestershire called in to Channel 5’s The Jeremy Vine Show to say: “For her, now she’s back, in her first interview, to turn round and blame our government is an ungrateful thing to do.”
Do you agree? Have your say in the comment section
Jason from Milborne Port agreed on Nick Ferrari’s LBC radio show. “It would have been nice for her to say thank you,” he moaned.
For the record, the first words out of Nazanin ’s mouth at the press conference were: “I would like to begin by saying that I am very grateful to whoever has been involved in getting us home, from politicians, to media members, whoever has been trying very hard to get our voices heard.”
She then gave a long list of thank yous. She used the word “grateful” so many times I lost count. But because she didn’t just sit prettily in front of the cameras and smile appreciatively, because this woman who has lost six years of her life – her marriage, her daughter’s childhood – dared address the elephant in the room, she’s now being berated.
It’s outrageous, insulting, misogynistic. Cheer up, love – OK, it did happen, but you’re home now so count yourself lucky.
She didn’t even mention Boris Johnson, whose incompetence when he was the foreign secretary tasked with helping her sealed her fate further instead.
He wrongly announced she was “teaching people journalism” – a statement that days later was cited in Iranian court proceedings as proof she was engaged in “propaganda against the regime”. It’s something that must surely have played on her mind every now and then as she sat in her cell for years and years and years.
Heroic MP Tulip Siddiq, who worked tirelessly to free her constituent, revealed this week that, “This disastrous blunder meant Johnson was forced to meet us. Incredibly, he asked if Richard had enjoyed his visit to Iran.
“Anyone who had read a newspaper article on the case was aware that Richard had been at home in the UK when his wife was arrested in Iran. To this day, I feel astonished by Johnson’s extremely poor grasp of his brief. (Richard gasped at the question.)”
The simple truth is that Nazanin has a lot to be angry about. She was an innocent pawn in a game between two governments arguing over a £400million debt for a cancelled arms deal. She was held for ransom, and left to rot.
Then, six long years later, the Tories who run this country may need Iranian oil, so they suddenly decide to do the right thing and rescue her… and she’s supposed to be grateful? Are you kidding?
Jeremy Hunt, one of the other foreign secretaries who failed her said yesterday: “Those criticising Nazanin have got it so wrong. She doesn’t owe us gratitude: we owe her an explanation.” Too right.
