Couple held in Iran

I was reading about a French couple still stuck there earlier too. Not sure if it’s the same ones you heard about. There was also a NZ couple who were released after a few months. There’s loads of people we don’t hear about who have been jailed there.

This article is a good read

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/16/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-anoosheh-ashoori-iran-evin-prison

Hopefully they will be fine since kept as a bargaining chip. Many others have been released

They won’t be killed, the regime needs them as bargaining chips. They will get something big out of the UK for these two!

No I didn't think they'd ever be in the same prison but at least the meeting had them together. I can't stop thinking about them, such stupidity but omg it's grim

Totally agree with you. They certainly wont be together in prison.

Also agree they are likely to be imprisoned for years if not hanged. Many foreigners arrested on suspicion of spying have been given years in prison just for being foreign. No real evidence.

This couple have given the irgc full evidence of spying in the form of interviewing locals ,gathering data uploading such info to social media. Saying they are going to present the evidence at a conference in Australia etc.

Of course to us this is just no big deal. But to the Iranians it IS evidence of spying.

I fear their chances of survival.

I would assume they’re separated in jail. The American hikers (1 woman, 2 men) were separated.

Realistically I think we are looking at least at 1-2 years here. Nothing ever moved fast with foreign prisoners in the past.

My friend is a good friend of an Austrian national and her dual citizenship father was imprisoned in Iran at age 72 and not released for 3 or more years despite suffering from ill health.

I listen to a podcast called Cautionary Tales

https://timharford.com/articles/cautionarytales/

It's about people and incidents where mistakes happen, human psychology makes mistakes more likely and what people can learn from them.

I am sure this would be a Cautionary Tale. Especially with the psychology of what they hoped to get from this trip and how people can read warning information but not think it would happen to them.

Interesting that they were there together, I had horrible thoughts of them being separated and not seeing or hearing about the other for the next half decade.

Can’t edit my pp so here is the link

https://www.newarab.com/news/uk-ambassador-meets-two-britons-detained-iran

The report late Wednesday said Ambassador Hugo Shorter met the two in the southern Iranian city of Kerman and in the presence of officials from the justice department and the governor's office.
The report neither identifies them nor elaborates on the time or place of their detention, though it calls them "suspects," suggesting they have not been sentenced and were possibly detained in recent weeks.
IRNA published two images that showed the two sitting opposite the ambassador at a meeting table.
"We are providing consular assistance to two British Nationals detained in Iran and are in contact with the local authorities," a spokesperson of the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, or FCDO, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Yes they have. The photo has been released

I am sure their families have called them worse in the last week or so. I have every sympathy for their families, i can only imagine the hell they must be going through, they must swing from despair to anger and back again every hour of the day.

Aren’t there photos of them meeting the british ambassador in Iran? I’m sure I saw one.

As I mentioned I don't know them all that well — literally all our contact since they moved to Spain has been via social media.

But I don't think even their immediate family (from memory they have one son and one stepson) knows any more than what has been reported in the media. Perhaps they will have heard something from the UK's ambassador, but I don't know if he has even met Craig and Lindsay personally. There is absolutely no benefit to the regime in letting them send messages to the outside world, and even if they did we would have to assume they were made under duress.

How could they possibly know. No insta or FB available for them to share every minute thought they might have, as they usually do.

Maybe Iran will allow them to use their flash cards though to share when they are tired, frustrated or happy 😊

Hopefully they are coping well in the circumstances. But I'd say it's unlikely they will be able to have any contact with their families. Any updates will just be from the Iranian authorities, which won't necessarily be reliable.

I doubt it's telling their families anything they don't already know.

For the people on this thread that do know the couple, do you know how they are coping with the situation? If they are relentlessly upbeat, they may be more resilient and accepting of their current circumstances that most people would be.

They knew exactly what was going on in Iran. They were not naive in any way. They knew the FCDO advice was DO NOT TRAVEL TO IRAN but thought they were special and chose to go anyway.

They made a choice, despite the advice not to go. It wasn't a mishap, an ill judged choice on the spur of the moment, they didn't just stumble across the border accidentally. They thought about it for weeks and CHOSE to go to Iran.

Actions have consequences

@samarrange Yes, they shouldn't have gone. But they did. They now have to deal with that, and so does the UK government, and so in a very tiny way do all of us. We can choose (or not) to care about them as human beings, just as we can choose (or not) to think that children drowning in the Channel is a bad thing regardless of our position on immigration.

Nah sorry. I sympathise with children drowning in the channel because they have not chosen to be there and they and their parents are usually trying to escape a tortuous fate not willfully placing themselves in the middle of one. And your take of "oh what are they like?! Ending up in prison in a banned country is just so them" is also making it hard to enduce sympathy.

Not sure why it annoys you that some of us are hoping for no harm to come to them. I can hope for the opposite for them if you like but it's a strange thing to wish on your friends.

Do they not keep up to date with what's going on in the world? Are the really that naive and unaware of anything but themselves?

People have no idea what happens in some countries and are woefully naive. I worked in authoritarian regimes and my phone was tapped, I was reported to the police, there were embedded police and I was under strict instructions not to criticise the regime or contradict their versions of history.

You play by the rules or you could disappear into jail, where you had no right to legal representation, to rot.

I have no idea what they thought they were doing.

At least the being upbeat will help them whilst held, they will need to stay positive. Hopefully there will be some news on their position again soon. People will be working hard to release them. Although of course Iran now has been given a bargaining chip. Maybe this will put off similar people considering going.

Apparently there are 3 teachers from France held there, similar charges https://english.aawsat.com/world/5113757-macron-meets-families-3-french-nationals-detained-iran

Do they not keep up to date with what's going on in the world? Are the really that naive and unaware of anything but themselves?

I am scratching my head a bit at the people who say they "do not care" and then add a weakly-worded caveat saying "but I hope no harm comes to them". The whole point of their predicament is that they are facing a long period of imprisonment in a country where they speak not one word of the language, with the possible additions of torture and/or a death sentence. It's not like they got stuck up a mountain and are now starting a GoFundMe to pay for the rescue helicopter.

Yes, they shouldn't have gone. But they did. They now have to deal with that, and so does the UK government, and so in a very tiny way do all of us. We can choose (or not) to care about them as human beings, just as we can choose (or not) to think that children drowning in the Channel is a bad thing regardless of our position on immigration.

I should declare an interest here, because like a previous poster I know this couple socially a little bit. We are not super-close friends, and they live a long way away now, but we keep up on social media. And yes, when I found out they were going to Iran I thought "Erm, OK, good luck with that". But in real life they really are exactly like on the videos: Relentlessly upbeat, sometimes to excess. If you had asked me a few years ago "Which of your circle of friends would be most likely to go to Iran and get taken hostage", they would have been right at the top of the list. It's all very sad and I hope they will be able to come home soon.

The FCDO guidance is clear that being held in an Iranian prison is EXACTLY what is likely to happen if people travel against advice and go to Iran.

Horrendous situation of course, but this could all have been easily avoided if they hadn't been so arrogant and thought the advice/rules/guidance didn't apply to them.

Was reading last night about 3 French teachers who have been held for 3 or so years now, also on charges of spying.

Completely agree - just because someone has made a perhaps misguided decision, doesn’t mean they deserve to be held in an Iranian prison under no doubt terrible conditions.

You don’t have to like them to feel empathy for this couple and their families.