He discovered that Nazanin’s Evin prison doctor had given her an “urgent referral” for her neck and back pain, after he had done an X-ray and MRI scan on her neck.
The doctor apparently had concerns about Nazanin’s vertebrae being out of place, or too close to her spinal cord, which was causing her “extensive pain” and a lack of movement in her arms.
The prison judge, however, has refused the referral, having previously promised it last week.
Richard told the Ham&High that he has not managed to speak with Nazanin directly about her pain.
Nazanin’s parents, who live in Iran, had also not been told about her suffering, but instead the news came from an Iranian human rights group, which monitors the prisons and courts and was founded by Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Richard believes that the new pain may be related to symptoms that Nazanin was complaining about in the Autumn.
He has not been allowed to speak with Nazanin since she lost her appeal against her five year jail sentence in January, although she has thankfully been granted visits from her two-year-old daughter.
Nazanin, who has dual Iranian and British nationality, and had a job as a media charity worker with Thomson Reuters, was arrested with her daughter Gabriella at Tehran airport, as they returned home from a holiday on April 3.
Gabriella’s passport was confiscated and she has been staying with her Iranian grandparents.
Nazanin was jailed on secret “national security” charges last year and in her latest appeal, she was accused of working as Head of Recruitment for BBC Farsi, although the BBC has confirmed that this is untrue.
Nazanin recently wrote a very moving letter to Gabriella, or Gisou in Farsi, from her cell in Iran.
She said: “There will come a day when I will learn if strawberries and blueberries are still your favourite fruit, if orange is still your favourite colour. Maybe they are no longer…
“My Gisou, there will come a day that we will be together again and tenderly hold one another’s loving hands.
“If time has deprived us of these days of togetherness and denied your father and me these days of your childhood, we do not fear. They can’t take away from us our memories.
“They can’t take our dreams for future.”
Source: / hamhigh /