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.
