Home / Crime and Justice / Hostage's Prison Comforts: Pizza, Sewing & Netflix
Hostage's Prison Comforts: Pizza, Sewing & Netflix
20 Sep
Summary
- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe watched Netflix shows in an Iranian jail.
- She cooked pizza and sewed clothes for her daughter and fellow inmates.
- Her prison art led to collaborations with London museums and designers.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a former charity worker detained in Iran for over five years, revealed unusual coping mechanisms during her imprisonment. While held in Tehran's Evin prison, she and fellow inmates watched downloaded Netflix series like 'Orange is the New Black' and 'Breaking Bad' via smuggled USB sticks, finding a connection to their former lives.
She also became known for her culinary skills, cobbling together funds for an oven to make pizzas for her co-prisoners, earning the title 'queen of the pizza dough'. Zaghari-Ratcliffe utilized the prison's sewing machine to create clothes for her daughter and others, a hobby that later blossomed into artistic collaborations with institutions like the Imperial War Museum and Liberty.
Among the contraband she admitted to smuggling was a Swiss Army knife, a risk she took feeling she had little left to lose as a political hostage. Released in March 2022, Zaghari-Ratcliffe continues to find solace in sewing, describing it as her refuge during times of global uncertainty and internet blackouts.
Her detention was widely believed to be part of a hostage exchange related to a UK debt to Iran. Despite the trauma, which she is addressing with therapy, her creative pursuits have become a vital part of her recovery and self-expression.
