Couple held in Iran

[StrawDonkey]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626p6pz7xlo

AIBU to not understand why anyone would go on a motorcycle trip to Iran? Advice is not to go there at all but I can understand that someone desperate to see family would take a risk.

I feel for their family, but they are a pair of idiots and I hope not too much diplomatic time is wasted on saving them from their own folly.

Because they won't be free without a lot of time and money being spent on their release from this end... consular, governmental & logistical, not to mention charitable. They are bargaining chips to Iran and they will no doubt cost the British taxpayer through their naivety (at best) arrogance (at worst)

For them then to use it as a personally profitable experience would be wrong in my view.

Oh I see, yes you do have a point there!

I disagree. Would you walk across a motorway...many people do, it doesn't make it a sensible thing to do. With all the press about others being arrested there and in Afghanistan why do it...just arrogant

Imagine being an Iranian teenager imprisoned and sentenced to hang slowly from a crane, all for the crime of protesting your government, and in the next cell there's somebody who went on a jolly through your country to prove all the naysayers wrong.

I mean, I do feel sorry for their nightmarish situation but people who squander the luck of being born in a free country are very frustrating.

Yes. I do want them to come home safely of course. But I worked for 10 years in a number of tricky countries for an international aid organisation in my late 20s to late 30s. We were so used to seeing Western do-gooders naively wandering around thinking they were on a great adventure and flattering themselves they were 'travellers not tourists'. What was consistent was that sort of vague happy view of 'I'm a good person so people will be good to me'. Most of the time it's fine of course but the number of times people ignored advice (particularly about where to travel and how to dress) ended up being in serious trouble and then having to be bailed out by the local diplomats was astonishing. And annoying and distracting and often expensive.

@GreenApplesRedApplesYellowApples even if the US teenagers you mention successfully find a tour guide and obtain an entry visa - which is not a foregone conclusion and takes months - they will be going against US government ‘do not travel’ advice and will be left in no doubt that they will be without consular assistance if the shit hits the fan. If there really are people stupid enough to risk that for clicks on SM, then God help us all.

Please don’t normalise this moronic behaviour. It trivialises the risks taken by thousands of dual national Iranians, who knowingly accept that risk in the interests of seeing their families. But then again, as we’ve seen from the horrific events of recent weeks, neither the Labour government nor the media has the tiniest of fucks to give about the plight of the Iranian people at the hands of Islamofascists, so perhaps it’s no surprise when the hard of thinking like this couple set off there on a bike for the shits and giggles.

I do think you're right in that there can be conflicting narratives. One hears some Iranians saying everything negative is western propaganda and life is good and peaceful, and there's no doubt the geography of the country is absolutely beautiful and when you see some travellers saying how lovely their time was and how it's not as the media says it is, it doubtless can make assessing risks more difficult.

I doubt this couple would have travelled to somewhere like Sudan for e.g.

Well there will always be vested interests spinning a line, the trick is not to be credulous or gullible. I imagine the current regime is a Paradise if you’re a religious fundamentalist who hates democracy, the rule of law and women, for example.

I don’t agree that assessing risk is difficult - it’s not even remotely nuanced. The regime is run by murderous thugs who have recently executed tens of thousands of protesters in cold blood. Iran is on the do not travel list of just about every liberal democracy for a reason. I’d trust those experts over randoms on SM.

Don’t get me wrong - I have family there and would love to visit. My SIL is a doctor in Tehran who was detained in prison for unIslamic dress last year. I’d love to hear her take on whether the negativity is “western propaganda” or not.

They have been given 10 years in prison for espionage. They have basically made themselves political hostages. How much are tax payers forking out for the idiots and how much lore will we have to pay?