Briton Arrested in Iran in 2016 Is Given 3-Day Furlough to See Family

A British woman of Iranian descent incarcerated in Iran on sedition charges since 2016 was granted a three-day furlough on Thursday to see her young daughter and other relatives, a break in a bitter dispute between Britain and Iran.

Word that the prisoner, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, had been allowed to temporarily leave Tehran’s Evin Prison was welcomed by her family and supporters including Britain’s new foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who called it “really good news.”

The imprisonment of Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 39, a program coordinator for the Thompson Reuters Foundation, an educational charity, has been a major source of friction in Britain-Iran relations. She is one of several British citizens of Iranian descent thought to be incarcerated in Iran.

The Free Nazanin Campaign, an advocacy organization based in Britain that announced she had been released temporarily, said in a statement that Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was staying with family members in the historic city of Damavand, near Tehran, and that she was “overwhelmed.”

The statement said she had been in her nightclothes early Thursday when the prison authorities gave her 10 minutes’ notice that she would be allowed to be with her family until Sunday.

The campaign posted photographs on its Twitter account of an overjoyed Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her daughter, Gabriella, embracing.

Iranian security agents arrested Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe on April 3, 2016, while she was visiting family accompanied by her daughter, then aged 2. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the government and sentenced to five years in prison.

Custody of her daughter was given to Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s parents, but the daughter’s British passport was confiscated by the Iranian authorities, complicating any possibility that she could be reunited with Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s British husband, Richard Ratcliffe.

The Thompson Reuters Foundation and Mr. Ratcliffe have called the accusations against her baseless and have helped lead an effort in Britain to press for her release.

It was not immediately clear why the Iranian authorities decided to allow Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe to go free temporarily. But the action came in the midst of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday associated with charitable acts.

Mr. Hunt and the Thompson Reuters Foundation both expressed hope that the three-day leave could be extended.

“We see this as a positive sign and hope that this will lead to her permanent release and an end to her traumatic ordeal for good,” the chief executive officer of the Thompson Reuters Foundation, Monique Villa, said in a statement. “Nazanin and her family have waited long enough for justice.”