Glastonbury 2023: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe discusses festival’s connection to her ordeal
Dual Iranian-British national, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has spoken about her experience of being incarcerated in Iran at Glastonbury Festival, and her ordeal’s connection to the annual Somerset celebration.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was speaking as part of a panel discussing women’s rights and Iran in the Left Field tent this afternoon. She was detained in the Middle Eastern country from April 3rd, 2016, as part of a dispute between Britain and Iran until March 16th, 2022.
“The Iranian government would sacrifice their own citizens to feed their own agenda, to the point that they don’t even care about a young mother and her young child,” she said. “I was used as a political pawn for something that predated me. The debt the British government owed the Iranian government was before I was even born.”
During the talk, she reflected on seeing a supportive banner at the festival four years ago, which gave her hope. She said: “While I was in prison I had very little access to the outside world. So I don’t actually know what was happening, I knew there was a campaign going on, but I didn’t exactly know the details or what was happening.”
Adding: “But my parents did take one copy of a very low-quality picture smuggled into Evin (prison), which was a banner from Glastonbury 2019, we’re all going to cry now, that showed Free Nazanin … that shows how far your story can get if people care about you.”
In other Glastonbury Festival news, a new clue seemingly pointing toward the identity of the mystery band The Churnups has been revealed. It features Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl backstage at the Pilton site.
Watch Zaghari-Ratcliffe discuss her ordeal below.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.