3 and half years ago, the world as we knew it got turned upside down. 

What was meant to be a lovely 2 week holiday with her parents and siblings, turned out to be the start of a very long Kafkaesque nightmare. 

Nazanin, my sister-in-law, had taken her daughter Gabriella to celebrate Nowruz with her family back in Iran, completely unaware of events to unfold.  On Sunday 3rd April Richard, my brother, about to go to Gatwick to pick them up, had a phone call from Nazanin’s family to say she’d been detained and separated from Gabriella.

It was a further 43 days before anyone from her family could see her.  At this point, having been kept in solitary confinement in a room little more than a size of a double bed, she could hardly walk, let alone carry her 1 year-old daughter. 

Naturally, when the gravity of their predicament hit home, Richard turned to the Foreign Office to get help.  It took a month to meet. They were very sympathetic of course but offered little practical advice other than to keep quiet and wait. 

A month of silently hoping and waiting was more than any of us could bear and I don’t think we could ever go through that again.  We soon became frustrated with lack of tangible results from the government.  Meetings my brother and parents had with Foreign Office officials often felt as much about managing our family rather than offering useful insights on their strategy for how they were going to get her home, with all the momentum of a hamster’s wheel. There were too many times we caught different people being told different stories. The Minister told my parents at one early meeting that the thing about most of these ‘consular cases’ is that while many have British passports, most are not really British.  My mother did not take kindly to the implication that her daughter-in-law and granddaughter were not properly British.  Reassurances of raising concern felt a bit emptier after that. Nazanin remained lost to us and to Gabriella – still true after 1,250 days. 

As disillusionment sunk in, we realised our best hope was not in silence but in making as much noise as possible. The government’s inclinations seemed reactive, full of creative ways to do relatively little, and pushing for things that seemed more in their interests than Nazanin’s. We realised it was our job to go not gently, but to rage against this outrageous behaviour of bargaining with a mother and her small child.  So, we started the Free Nazanin campaign, looking to open hearts and eyes. 

It has not been easy for any of us and not a decision for any family to take lightly.  My life, already a juggle that comes with being a working parent, suddenly gained an extra dimension, a pressure that often took priority.  Days off were spent making badges, liaising with councils and the police about upcoming events, talking to the media, sourcing stones and candles, painting posters, printing off hundreds of messages from well-wishers.  Social media, a resource our family used to largely ignore, suddenly took on a new importance and dinner would often be delayed while we madly tweeted out during twitter storms.  Birthdays, Christmases and anniversaries are not only tinged with sadness, but, rather tragically, become opportunities to campaign.  The build up to Christmas now includes a carol vigil outside Downing street, a heart-warming event with hundreds of people singing out carols surrounded by fairy lights and candles.  Initially it was planned as a one off, but sadly has become an annual event with other families who have experienced the same fight for their loved ones.  Sports days, school trips and concerts have been sacrificed for the campaign.  The children in our family have spent far too many days, and at times evenings, on the streets, campaigning for their aunt and cousin.  It is has become a normality to them to hand out FreeNazanin badges, often with their friends helping.  When my youngest son, Dylan, was 6, he had to bring 5 objects to school to describe his life.  He chose to bring in one of those badges, “because my auntie’s in prison in Iran” he causally stated when standing up in front of his class.   They have accepted this way of life, as they struggle to remember the normal days from before.

But for all the sacrifices, it put Nazanin in the news.  Her fate is no longer an obscure piece of news from yesterday’s international pages but in the thoughts of thousands of people across the country.  And these people reach out to us, not only sending us beautiful messages of solidarity but actively join us in the campaign.  Other families too have been in touch, some with similar stories, some who have had very different experiences, but all with the same frustrations from the Foreign Office and lack of momentum in their cases.  And that all has power, a power we couldn’t gain on our own.

Not only does that solidarity reach out to us and nourish us when we most need it, but it also puts pressure on both governments to try to solve this.  Pressure that at times has lead to significant changes for Nazanin – her first family visit was allowed within days of us going public, huge attention on Boris Johnson, the then Foreign Secretary, lead to a personal visit to the family in Iran, medical assessments often happened after significant scrutiny from the media.   Our family’s biggest regret is not applying that pressure from the start.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”  Sometimes I wonder if the same is true for governments.  As families who’ve had loved ones detained abroad, our trust in the British Government to act in their best interests has long waned. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  The British government could prioritise human right protection of their citizens overseas.  Millions of us travel abroad and any one of us could find ourselves in trouble, through no fault of our own.  Our government’s protection must not take second place to trade and diplomacy.  If Nazanin had had these assurances from the start, things may have worked out very differently.  It is unlikely she would have stayed in solitary confinement for so long and may have escaped any lengthy sentence at all, like many of her international counterparts.   We will never know for sure.  Policy must change to help future families so that consular assistance is not about who shouts the loudest or who has the most British accent but a fundamental right of those who hold a British passport. 

We ask you to join us.  We are always stronger together.

Thank you for supporting our campaign.