Since I last wrote 100 days have passed and a lot more beside – this update is to catch up on events in Iran, one to follow for the UK. After the wall of silence in Iran, it was announced last Monday that Nazanin had been indicted for ‘sowing unrest’. Nazanin is being taken to court, we discovered from the Iranian state media. The actual charges remain shrouded in secret. They have not been told to Nazanin, nor any lawyer allowed. She was indicted alongside three others with whom she has no connection, except that they all have Western passports. ‘Sowing unrest’ could mean anything; though anything it means is bad. It was a shock of sadness in our house – feeling its blank significance, refreshing the internet for new information. My in-laws also had a very difficult two year old to manage, who would not eat her dinner or settle. Gabriella may not understand precisely what is going on around her, but she has a keen sense of the family mood. The shock was because two weeks earlier, we had been sent signals this would not happen. The Revolutionary Guard sent me a message that the UK government should make an ‘agreement’, and I should pressure them. If the UK government reached this agreement, then Nazanin’s case would be closed without court. You read that right – the intelligence services of the Revolutionary Guard asked me to publicise the fact that they are detaining a mother and baby – not because of any suspicious activity in Iran, but as collateral for a political deal. For me, it was welcome to the looking glass. Last week Nazanin’s interrogators clarified they wanted an ‘exchange’. They also encouraged our strength to pressure the government, that over 780,000 people had signed our petition. If you ever wondered what difference signing a petition really makes, here you have the attention of an Evin interrogation room. Evidently Nazanin knew all along – which shows how little sight I have of the battles she is fighting. She had been told 6 weeks ago when not released but transferred to Tehran that she was being held for a bargain with the UK. Last week I requested an urgent meeting with the Iranian Embassy to discuss. To date, meeting them has been unexpectedly hard. Rather than mirrors, it has been smoke and walls. The Embassy had offered to meet following Gabriella’s birthday party, but subsequently cancelled it. The Foreign Ministry in Tehran has offered to deliver a message for us to the Judiciary. They were happy to be mediators with other parts of the Iranian regime, rather than wanting to be their representatives, but it was welcome. I asked for Nazanin and Gabriella to be released for the Eid. Instead she was charged. Much Iranian communication is guided by a culture of ‘taarouf’, a subtle code showing and saving face, of not saying things, offering things you may not want to be accepted, refusing things you actually need. As a foreigner, it is part of what makes Iranian signals hard to interpret. The risk is to see this just as a cultural delicacy. Refusing to talk about certain things also offers a kind of ostrich accountability. There are many things going on in Iran – only some of which are visible, or stable. Two times Nazanin has been released, and two times that has been retracted. Her case will be dropped, then she is taken to court. All these changes suggest an opportunism, different people making it up as they go along. The risk for me is seeing in this a false coherence. What I see most is infighting. Nazanin’s fate is of different people intervening to show how powerful they are and make someone else look stupid, asserting they are the kings of their castle. This is why the charges keep changing, why the first set were rushed out full of typos, why the Tehran Guards said privately to ignore what the Kerman Guards put in the media. Wrapped up in their battles, this cacophony of chiefs are remarkably insulated in how they use other people’s lives. There will come a time for us to feel it properly. For now, the fact that we are negotiating has been an elation. For now, Nazanin remains under the control of her interrogators. As their collateral, conditions have improved: she is allowed weekly visits from Gabriella, and soon phone calls to her parents twice a week. Last visit her family could even give her a copy of War and Peace, her favourite on TV this winter. She remains subject to their techniques, where anything can still happen. But where the smoke signals are hopeful this can be ended – if our political leaders put their minds to it. That is a subject for the next update.