Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Goes to Court Without a Lawyer in New Case

Eight hundred days have passed since the detention and imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian citizen. Ms. Zaghari, who was working for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the UK at the time of her arrest, was detained in April 2016 while leaving Iran and was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of 'participating in activities related to soft overthrow.' Now, the judiciary states that she must appear in court due to the opening of another security case against her. According to Ms. Zaghari's husband, since her chosen lawyer was not approved and none of the 20 lawyers on Judge Salavati's approved list were trusted by Nazanin Zaghari, she has decided to defend herself in court. The 800th day of Ms. Zaghari's imprisonment coincides with her child's fourth birthday; according to her husband, she was previously promised that she might be granted a few days of leave for her child's birthday, which was not approved. In this regard, Radio Farda interviewed Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari's husband. Mr. Ratcliffe, was your wife supposed to be granted leave for Gabriella's birthday? What happened that this did not occur? The short answer is that I do not know what happened. About two weeks ago, Nazanin was told that there was an 80 or 90 percent chance she would be granted leave. She signed a letter regarding this, and there was a lot of excitement about it. However, we always had doubts that until this actually happened, you wouldn't know if it was real or not. And now I don't know what happened. What was told to her father on Sunday was that the judge had agreed, the IRGC had accepted, and the prosecutor had also agreed, but it needed the final signature of the Attorney General, which he did not sign in time for Nazanin to be granted leave. As a result, did Gabriella see her mother in prison for her birthday? Yes. Nazanin was hoping to go home. Therefore, she did not prepare for it like last year when she celebrated Gabriella's birthday in prison. But yesterday was a visiting day, so Nazanin's father was allowed to take the whole family to the prison to see Gabriella. Nazanin had baked a small cake that she had managed to bring to this visit after some struggles, and some other family members also gave gifts to Gabriella, and they spent an hour together, which I think were good moments, but unfortunately, that was the only time they had to be together. Did you talk to her for your daughter's birthday? Her birthday is today (Tuesday). So we will talk today. I called last night because the family had gathered and Gabriella was eating cake, so there wasn't much opportunity to talk to her dad. We will try again tonight. On Tuesday night, we have a program in front of the British Foreign Office. We will light 800 candles, for the number of days Nazanin has been in prison, and we will sing happy birthday to Gabriella and try to connect with her via the internet. It has been 800 days that your wife has been in prison, and you have not seen your child, who has turned four today, up close during this time. How do you feel on such a day? Not being able to see her every day is the hard part of this situation. Gabriella was very small when she went to Iran. She could walk a little but did not speak. Now she has grown into a little girl who speaks Persian, but this language barrier has formed between us. In the first months, it was very hard as she was distancing herself, but now it is hard to maintain this relationship with her. As far as she understands, there is a dad who she cannot really count on. Yesterday, when they were at the prosecutor's office, she said, 'Please free both my mom and my dad.' So she is worried that we are both in prison. This distance is hard, and rebuilding this relationship will also be difficult, and I try not to focus too much on it. Richard Ratcliffe says he has never received a response regarding his visa request from Iranian authorities. You previously mentioned in your interviews that you might want to go to Iran to see your wife Nazanin Zaghari in prison and also see your child. Are you still considering going to Iran? I still have not received a visa. I will probably wait to see what happens with this new case. But as you said, a lot of time has passed, and I will certainly try to go there. So you applied for a visa and it was not accepted? Yes, I applied and never received a response. Sometimes officials say they are reviewing it, and no decision has been made yet. I still have not been able to meet with any Iranian officials to discuss this matter. You mentioned the new case. The Iranian judiciary has announced that a court will be held soon. Do you know when this court will take place? We do not know. We saw the announcement on Saturday. Nazanin's lawyer, who has not yet been approved to defend her, is supposed to go on Tuesday to see if he can get more information. However, her father was not given any explanation about this on Sunday. In the statement, you also mentioned that the lawyer your wife chose has not been approved. Could you explain what happened in this regard? Yes, Nazanin has a lawyer she wanted to defend her in this case. However, Judge Salavati had previously told her that he would not approve this lawyer. Nazanin submitted her request in writing, and he rejected it and gave her a list of 20 lawyers to choose from. Since Nazanin did not know any of those lawyers and did not trust them, she decided to defend herself in this case. As a result, Nazanin will go to court without a lawyer. Do you think she can legally defend herself? Legally, she has the right to do so. Her experience with the court system has been that it does not matter what is said in court because she will be convicted anyway. There have been cases where we thought the lawyer did a good job defending, and it did not yield results. I think the difference will be that if she defends herself, this time she will be able to see the case against her, which she was not able to do last time. But they still have not shown her the case. My last question is about your wife herself. In your communication, how is your wife's mental and physical condition? We spoke yesterday morning after she had heard from her father that she was not going to be granted leave. As a result, she was not in good spirits at all. All her hope was that she would be granted leave for Gabriella's birthday. On the phone, she said she was tired of waiting and could not continue this situation for much longer. I think that mental exhaustion is the hardest part of this situation.