Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe requires urgent psychiatric treatment as she suffers from PTSD after being a victim of torture, according to a charity which commissioned a detailed medical assessment of her.
Human rights group Redress has called on the Government to recognize Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a victim of torture, having sent the Foreign Secretary the 77-page report on the mother-of-one it commissioned from the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, last week completed a five-year sentence in Tehran on spying charges levied by Iranian authorities, the last year of which was spent under house arrest due to the pandemic.
However, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose husband Richard and six-year-old daughter Gabriella live in London, must now return to court to face more charges in the case some observers have linked to a long-standing debt Iran alleges it is owed by the UK.
Richard Ratcliffe said it would take “a long time” for his wife’s mental anxiety to go away and the situation was “still very uncertain,” ahead of her return to court in Iran on Sunday.
Speaking about her treatment on Times Radio, he said: “In fairness to the Iranian regime they are quite sophisticated about not leaving physical scars but they do an awful lot of cruel tricks.
“Things are still very uncertain… that fear of bad stuff happening again, of being put back in solitary (confinement) will stay with her until she’s safe.
“It takes a long time for that anxiety to go away.”
Mr Ratcliffe, said his six-year-old daughter Gabriella was “definitely weaponized” against his wife but that was a “standard tactic”.
He said that guards would call their own children outside his wife’s cell, when she could not, which he described as a “real studied cruelty”.
It also says at the beginning of her sentence in 2016, Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was interrogated for hours on end, often blindfolded, while in solitary confinement.
Redress says the report also shows the former Thomson Reuters Foundation aid administrator has suffered hair loss, developed obsessive compulsive disorder about washing, and was repeatedly forced to endure hearing a female prison guard’s conversations with her daughter, exacerbating her distress at being separated from her own child.
“In addition, she experiences ongoing physical pain and impairment in her neck, right shoulder, and arm, which arose as a result of her treatment and the denial of medical care,” Redress said in a statement.
The charity said it based its categorization of Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a torture victim on UN standards, and said the assessment’s findings were “highly consistent” with Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s allegations of torture and ill-treatment.
It also released a summary letter from from the IRCT detailing findings from the “independent physical and psychological evaluation of Nazanin … conducted by two doctors who are who are recognized forensic specialists over three days in October 2020″.
That letter states Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe “is in urgent need of psychiatric pharmacological and psychotherapeutic support, as well as evaluation and treatment of her physical symptoms”.
“Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s pain and suffering have not abated due to her release from imprisonment to house arrest,” the letter says.
Iranian authorities have intentionally inflicted severe suffering on Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe for the purpose of intimidating or coercing the UK Government into negotiating a deal for her release, coercing her into giving a confession, and forcing her to provide information about others.
“The UK Government should publicly acknowledge Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a victim of torture in Iran, and do everything in its power to protect her from further harm.”
A downing street spokesman said in his call with Mr. Rouhani on Wednesday, the Prime Minister had said “that while the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle monitor was welcome, her continued confinement remains completely unacceptable and she must be allowed to return to her family in the UK.”
Amnesty International UK has called on Britain’s ambassador in Tehran to visit Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliffe before her court hearing on Sunday to show “maximum solidarity” with her.
Downing Street has previously said officials have been denied access to legal proceedings because Iran does not recognize dual nationality.