Statement from Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa to mark the three-year anniversary of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s imprisonment

“It is so sad to have to mark the third anniversary of Nazanin’s brutal arrest in Tehran and her imprisonment. The treatment imposed by the Iranian authorities on our innocent colleague is nothing less than torture, psychological and physical. It has to cease. 

During the past three years, I have worked closely with her husband Richard on the campaign to free Nazanin, and I have seen how incredibly challenging it has been for him to keep her morale up day after day and help her through her darkest moments. I am full of admiration for Richard’s and Nazanin’s strength and courage throughout. 

From the exchanges I have had with Nazanin, I know that she is still the strong woman she was when she worked with us at the Foundation, but I also feel the desperation that strikes and numbs her often, as well as the increasing sense of urgency she feels as the years go by. 

When she was arrested after her holiday with her family, Nazanin was brutally separated from her daughter Gabriella. She has never accepted that separation. This is absolutely agonising for her. I hope they can soon have a second child. We all know at the Foundation how important it was for her to be a mother, as she shared her joy on a daily basis. It would be unbearably cruel to deny her the chance to have that second child. 

Nazanin’s desk has been kept empty ever since she was arrested and will be here when she returns. She is sorely missed by all of us at the Thomson Reuters
Foundation. We urge the Iranian authorities to release Nazanin immediately, before her health deteriorates further. It is time to end her ordeal, and right this wrong.” 

Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation