Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman who has been imprisoned in Tehran since 2016 on spying charges, is being treated in hospital after suffering panic attacks, her husband said.
Richard Ratcliffe said that while facts were “not 100% clear,” his wife had suffered panic attacks on Monday and Tuesday before being sent to the prison clinic after fainting.
The panic attacks come just days after she returned to prison after she was temporarily released to spend time with her family and four-year-old daughter. Gabriella.
“She definitely had a panic attack yesterday and today,” Ratcliffe told CNN Tuesday.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken to the prison clinic after a blackout on Tuesday, he said. Fellow prisoners called the family saying they were worried about Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s condition, he added.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt tweeted his support for Zaghari-Ratcliffe, writing: “All our thoughts and prayers with Nazanin and her family today. Unbearable suffering to be apart from daughter with her hopes raised then dashed. We must redouble efforts to find a way to get her home #FreeNazanin.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to prison on Sunday, after spending three days with her family and young daughter.
Her temporary release had given her supporters hope that she would be permanently released.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first detained at Tehran’s airport in April 2016 while on her way back to the UK from visiting family with her daughter Gabriella, who was then 22 months old.
The Iranian government accused her of working with organizations allegedly attempting to overthrow the regime. She was sentenced to five years in jail and her child was placed in the care of her parents.
Her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, rejected the allegations. In May, Iranian media reported that she was due to face a new trial for “security-related” charges.