Jump directly to the content
FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard and do they have children?

RICHARD Ratcliffe's tireless campaigning for the release of his wife captured the attention of the public.

Here, we look at his marriage to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and where he is now.

Richard Ratcliffe fought for six years through protests and campaign to bring his wife home
1
Richard Ratcliffe fought for six years through protests and campaign to bring his wife home

Who is Richard Ratcliffe?

Richard Ratcliffe is the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman jailed in Iran in 2016.

She was released in March 2022, following strong and continuous campaigning from Richard, which included a 21-day hunger strike outside the Foreign office.

He was visited by supporters including Strictly Come Dancing co-host Claudia Winkleman, writer and presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

He also went on marches, and won the Campaigner of the Year award at the Civility in Politics Awards in London in 2022.

READ MORE ON NAZANIN

A documentary about Richard's campaign to free his wife after she was detained in Iran is set to air on Channel 4 in 2023.

The programme started filming in 2017, and was focused on an arms debt that Britain had owed to Iran since the 1970s.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was later informed that the debt was the reason why she was held in prison.

Nazanin was originally detained by the Iranian authorities in 2016 after visiting the country on holiday with her daughter, who was three-months-old at the time.

She was initially accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.

Do Richard and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe have children?

Together, Richard and Nazanin have one child, a daughter called Gabriella.

Gabriella spent three and a half years living with her grandparents in Iran to be closer to her mother.

She visited her British-Iranian mother in the notorious Evin Prison when the authorities would allow, and after years of being brought up in an Iranian household, she lost the ability to speak English.

She came back to start school at the age of five, after a spell of 1,300 days in Iran.

The family were able to have their first photograph together in six years in March 2022 when Nazanin returned to the UK.

Topics