Yes is the honest answer, and it varies over time.
Broadly, in our experience, when someone is held in solitary, we have no contact for the first couple of months, which is the really live interrogation period. Thereafter, Nazanin was allowed to call me, which would typically be a very short phone call, with an interrogator standing next to her. It was a very sheltered type of sharing of information, but at least we'd know she was alive.
Evin prison, which is the main prison in Iran, is controlled in different parts by different bodies. The interrogation part, controlled by the revolutionary guard, is pretty terrifying, with very controlled communications. After Nazanin was convicted and after our appeal, she was moved to the regular ward, so she's now one of the women's ward prisoners with some very inspiring women.
There's a rota to when you get phone calls. I can't ever call her, but she can call me. All the phone calls are recorded, but it's not quite so....
In most of the cases, certainly the Canadian cases, anyway, they are now in that situation. They're able to have phone calls once or twice a week, normally enough to know what the news is. A 10-minute call is not necessarily great when someone is despairing. You know how someone feels, but you can't really do anything about it.
Some of toughest parts in the whole process are probably Nazanin despairing on the other end of the phone and me not being able to be there. I can be a campaigning husband, so I can take information and use it in the media and use it in part, but to be a real husband and just listen to her, not really.