A documentary about British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is set to air on Channel 4 this evening (Thursday, March 16) and draw attention to her shock 2016 arrest at Tehran airport and subsequent time in jail. Nazanin, now 44, was finally allowed to come home to the UK and reunite with her husband and daughter last March, after six tough years in an Iranian prison.
In 2016, Nazinin was stopped from boarding her flight back to the UK with her 22-month-old daughter, Gabriella, after the pair visited Nazanin’s family in Iran to celebrate ‘Nowruz’ (Iranian New Year). Nazanin’s passport was soon confiscated and she was arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and sentenced to five years in prison. Her sentence was later extended by an additional year, with much of this time spent in in a tiny 2m by 3m cell with no windows and no light.
At the end of her sentence, the UK Government paid off a £400 million debt to Iran that dated back to the 1970s - although both governments have said the two issues should not be linked. Tonight's documentary, simply named ‘Nazanin,’ was five years in the making and follows Nazanin and her husband Richard as they navigated Nazanin’s imprisonment and its impact on their family.
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The summary for the programme explains: "Observational documentary about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian charity worker arrested at Tehran airport in 2016 and accused of spying. Her husband Richard juggled a media and political campaign to free his wife while raising their daughter Gabriella alone.
"He knew then that his wife's detention was deeply connected to the complicated and toxic diplomatic relationship between Britain and Iran and to an unpaid debt going back half a century. Five years in the making, this film includes never-before-seen material captured by Nazanin herself."
The Radio Times’ Caroline Frost adds: "When Boris Johnson, our then-foreign secretary, was moved to speak about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in 2017, saying that she was “simply teaching people journalism”, everyone invested in her fate gave a large sigh, knowing he hadn’t helped. However, this was just the latest chapter in the singular tale of the British-Iranian charity worker, at the time locked inside Tehran’s notorious Evin prison with small prospect of freedom.
"Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been arrested at Tehran Airport in 2016. She was about to fly home after a visit to her parents with baby daughter Gabriella. Instead, she was charged with spying and handed a five-year jail sentence.
"This intimate documentary, five years in the making, follows both Nazanin and her husband Richard as they face very different challenges in the struggle to bring her home. When Richard discovers how his wife’s fate is bound up in a British-Iranian arms deal for tanks dating back to the 1970s, we enter the world of international political thriller. But, at its heart, this remains a love story of three people determined to be reunited."
Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian journalist. Born and raised in Tehran, Nazanin studied English Literature at University there before moving to the UK in 2007 after receiving a scholarship to study a Masters degree in Communication Management in London.
There, she met her now-husband Richard Ratcliffe and the couple welcomed a baby girl in June, 2014, a year after she became a British citizen. Whilst living in London, the family would frequently fly to Iran to visit Nazanin's parents and wider family - until their lives changed forever in 2016 when Nazanin was arrested at Tehran airport and thrown into prison.
Why was Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrested?
Nazanin and her baby daughter were stopped from boarding their flight back to the UK after a visit to Iran in 2016. It's understood that Iranian authorities accused Nazanin of plotting to overthrow the government - but the exact charges were never made public.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Nazanin was leading a "foreign-linked hostile network" and sentenced her to five years in an Iranian prison. Nazanin has always denied the accusations she faced, and insisted she had taken her daughter, Gabriella, to visit her parents and celebrate the Iranian New Year.
Both of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's employers, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action, issued statements confirming that she was not working in Iran but was on holiday.
In June 2019, both Nazanin and her husband Richard Ratcliffe went on hunger strike, in protest at Nazanin's imprisonment, with Richard camping outside the Iranian Embassy in London. They both ended the hunger strike on 29 June 2019, after 15 days.
During the final year of her prison term, Nazanin spent her time on parole at her parents' home in Tehran. Despite this, in April 2021, she was sentenced to a further year in prison and a one-year travel ban, after being found guilty of "propaganda against the Iranian government". She subsequently lost an appeal against the second conviction.
When was Zaghari-Ratcliffe released?
A few months after Nazanin lost an appeal against her second conviction, she was finally released in March, 2022.
Following her return to the UK, Nazanin reunited with her husband and daughter in an emotional moment at the airport. At the time, her sister wrote on Twitter: "A little girl has finally got her Mummy and Daddy back. To all those that helped make this possible, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you!"
Nazanin airs tonight, Thursday March 16, at 9pm on Channel 4
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