BICOM

British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released from prison for three days and reunited with her daughter and other relatives in Iran until Sunday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years imprisonment for espionage and has been in prison for two years. She was released on 23 August for three days. According to media reports, she was given ten minutes to get dressed and leave the prison. Her temporary release is conditional on her not giving any media interviews and not visiting any embassy. She will return to prison on Sunday.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all when it was mentioned two weeks ago,” Zaghari-Ratcliffe said outside her parent’s home in Tehran. “I didn’t tell Gabriella or for a long time my mum – so if it didn’t happen I would be the only one to suffer. I was so emotional to see my grandmother today. I cried so much. I felt so overwhelmed,” she added.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s daughter, Gabriella, was 22-months-old when she was arrested in April 2016. “The thought of brushing her hair, and giving her a bath. Of being able to take her to the park, and feed her, and sleep next to her – it just kills me. It is still so hard to believe,” said Zaghari-Ratcliffe in a statement released by her husband Richard Ratcliffe.

Her three-day release coincides with the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. A previous request for temporary release during the Eid al-Fitr festival in June, coinciding with Gabriella’s birthday, was refused.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed what he said on Twitter was “really good news” and said the British Government would push for a permanent release.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was initially charged with espionage but later charged with spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic after former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson mistakenly claimed that she had been in Iran training journalists.