Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on her release: ‘It should have happened six years ago’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The relief was evident on their faces but in Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe’s first press conference since her return to the UK on March 17, joined by her softly-spoken husband and a host of British media in Westminster’s Portcullis House, the pointed question was raised: why did it take five British Foreign Secretaries to negotiate her freedom?

“What’s happened now should have happened six years ago,” Zaghari Ratcliffe told those present, after thanking all who provided their support during her six years of imprisonment including, perhaps most crucially, her husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lobbied tirelessly for her release including enduring two hunger strikes to raise awareness of her unjust detention.

Almost six years to the day she left home for Tehran in March 2016, the 43-year-old British-Iranian was reunited with Ratcliffe and their 7-year-old daughter Gabriella last Wednesday.

In a statement issued by the UK's current Foreign Secretary Liz Truss shortly after Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release along with 67-year-old retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, it was confirmed that the UK government had repaid a longstanding International Military Services £400 million ($530 million) debt to Tehran.

Likening his thank yous to a groom's speech at a wedding, Ratcliffe began the conference by expressing his gratitude to the British government, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) staff, and all those in parliament including Tulip Siddiq, the couple’s MP who organised the event. Holding his wife’s hand, Ratcliffe shared his evident pride in having his wife home to “start a new chapter.” All sides of the political divide recognised the injustice, he said, and people up and down the country had shown - and continue to demonstrate - their care in the case.

Alongside the couple sat Siddiq and Roxanne Tahbaz, who was asked to join her press conference by Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Her father, the 66-year-old British-US-Iranian detainee Morad Tahbaz, remains in Iran after hopes were dashed that he may have been allowed to return to his family last week.

The MP for London’s Hampstead and Kilburn said that she had written to the foreign affairs committee asking for an inquiry into the case. In particular, she told the media, it was important to establish why it took so long for the UK to settle the debt it owed Iran and, therefore, why it took so long for her constituent to be freed. 

Siddiq also questioned an event in 2013, years before Zaghari-Ratcliffe became a pawn in the geopolitical dispute, in which three Iranian officials came to the UK to negotiate the debt but were instead arrested at London’s Heathrow airport. The MP questioned, too, why the deal that had been established last year fell through.

Wearing a yellow and blue outfit, Zaghari-Ratcliffe took a somewhat calmer and firmer stance than her husband. Raising the example of Tahbaz, she called for all "unjustly detained" prisoners in Iran to be freed, and directly questioned why it had taken five successive British Foreign Secretaries to negotiate her freedom. 

"I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years," she said.
 
"How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? It should have been one of them eventually. "We all know… how I came home,” she said alluding to the debt repayment of the sum paid by the Iranian government for tanks in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution. “What’s happened now should have happened six years ago.”

“I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete until such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families - to begin with Murad, but also the other dual nationals, members of religious groups and prisoners of conscience.” 

Zaghari-Ratcliffe thanked the media for the role played in telling her story to the world, but took the opportunity to press for even greater scrutiny. “We do realise that if I have been in prison for six years, there are so many other people - we don’t know their names - who have been suffering in prison in Iran.”

Roxanne, Murad’s oldest daughter, told reporters that his family only learnt he had been left behind last week by the media. She begged the prime minister and FCO to help. Nazanin drew comparisons to how she had felt left behind and forgotten, and how this must be exactly how the only UK-born national must now feel to be “abandoned” there.

“The world should unite together to make sure that there is no one held - either a hostage, or in prison - for something they haven’t done,” she said. 

As a result of being a “pawn in the hands of the two governments over the past six years,” Nazanin also told the audience that she had followed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, “very, very closely,” having been told on multiple occasions that their stories were interlinked.

“I don’t think anybody’s life should be linked to a global agreement… whether that’s nuclear, environment, or whatever. Every human being has the right to be free,” she said.

Discussing the future, Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she was looking forward to spending time with her daughter Gabriella, and getting to know her better. "It was lovely to get to hold her, to braid her hair and to brush her hair. That was a moment that I really, really missed."

Zaghari-Radcliffe declined to answer more personal probes into her life as a prisoner but asked about her family’s plans for next week’s Mothering Sunday, Nazanin said that she had already celebrated Newroz with her family on Sunday by “quickly putting the table together.” More  moments are set to come.

“I’m not going to live for the rest of my life with a grudge,” she said, accepting that what happened to her was cruel, but determined to move forwards. “I was the lucky one who got to be recognised internationally, but there are so many other people in prison.