Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has UK passport returned, MP says.

[FNG]

julian64 said:

Eric Mc said:

PH disgusts me sometimes.

Whether you're right or wrong, this is a bit funny. You've been on pistonheads a long time, probably about the same as me and have something like ten times the number of posts as the average person who has been on that long.

Admit it, nothing about pistonheads disgusts you. You love it.

High horses don't ride themselves tho.

[Eric Mc]

Murph7355 said:

B
2) it's every UK govt's fault who failed to pay the ransom owed

I didn't say otherwise. The default on the deal goes back decades so they all played a part. The current government is the one responsible for the situation now as they are currently the ones in charge. The desire to run a country comes with the downside of carrying the can for what other did before you.

[Johnnytheboy]

JagLover said:

Johnnytheboy said:

I've just listened to all but the last few mins of the R4 interview. Uncharacteristically sympathetic effort by Emma Barnett. Unless it was covered in the last bit, I'm still none the wiser as to why Ms Z.R. thinks:

A. The Iranians targeted her in particula, and
B. Why BoJo mistakenly said she was training journalists.

That latter point seems to have been brushed over by the BBC since the beginning. It's a weirdly specific mistake for him to have made.

Not to have a go at you but we do go over this every now and then.

She HAD trained Iranian journalists here in the UK and that was the "crime" the Iranian authorities arrested and convicted her for. Then go forward a bit and this was one of the cases Bojo was being quizzed about as FS. Whereupon he said that this is what she had been convicted for. Then add on the usual media hysteria from outlets who these days cannot even be bothered to check basic facts.

By the by several graduates of the course she had worked on were sentenced to 11 years in jail prior to her visit in 2016. So her visit seems extremely foolhardy in that context.

Edited by JagLover on Tuesday 24th May 11:53

Yet oddly you would not have got a whiff of your post's content from the BBC's coverage.

I posted near the start of this thread that there was a surreal moment on R4 Any Answers when Boris had just made his comments, in which a caller more or less said what I did. Instead of debating the point, the presenter just shouted over them, then cut them off with an almost fanatical determination they could not be heard.

That was enough to tell me that there was more to this, and that the BBC knew that 'more'.

[Murph7355]

Eric Mc said:

I didn't say otherwise. The default on the deal goes back decades so they all played a part. The current government is the one responsible for the situation now as they are currently the ones in charge. The desire to run a country comes with the downside of carrying the can for what other did before you.

Have you forgotten that the current govt who have been in place for just over 2yrs are the ones that paid the outstanding debt, securing the release of the detainees?

I'm sure Boris will welcome your thank you card. Just don't send him any feckin cake.

[Eric Mc]

Murph7355 said:

Have you forgotten that the current govt who have been in place for just over 2yrs are the ones that paid the outstanding debt, securing the release of the detainees?

I'm sure Boris will welcome your thank you card. Just don't send him any feckin cake.

They did resolve the situation - eventually. I'll give them credit for that. But I don't think they deserve any medals for the overall handling of the situation. At times, they seemed to want to make the situation worse. If they didn't ACTUALLY want the situation to be worse, then they acted in a grossly incompetent manner at times.

Boris will eventually do the right thing sometimes - if only out of embarrassment.

I'm sure Boris would like some cake - just no photographers when he's cutting himself a slice.

[julian64]

Eric Mc said:

julian64 said:

Whether you're right or wrong, this is a bit funny. You've been on pistonheads a long time, probably about the same as me and have something like ten times the number of posts as the average person who has been on that long.

Admit it, nothing about pistonheads disgusts you. You love it.

I did say "sometimes" Most of the time, I enjoy it.

That's better.

[Murph7355]

Eric Mc said:

Murph7355 said:

Have you forgotten that the current govt who have been in place for just over 2yrs are the ones that paid the outstanding debt, securing the release of the detainees?

I'm sure Boris will welcome your thank you card. Just don't send him any feckin cake.

They did resolve the situation - eventually. I'll give them credit for that. But I don't think they deserve any medals for the overall handling of the situation. At times, they seemed to want to make the situation worse. If they didn't ACTUALLY want the situation to be worse, then they acted in a grossly incompetent manner at times.

Boris will eventually do the right thing sometimes - if only out of embarrassment.

I'm sure Boris would like some cake - just no photographers when he's cutting himself a slice.

Res non verba Eric.

The issue had been out there for 40yrs when this govt came in. They fixed it in 2.

Medals? Nah. They did their job. But no predecessor did.

(Yeah yeah, I'm Boris' lovechild etc.).

[andyA700]

Murph7355 said:

Eric Mc said:

What situation did she put herself in?

She had every right to go to Iran.

As far as she was aware, there was no reason not to. She had no beef with the regime and as far as she was aware, they had no beef with her. British people travel to and from Iran - it's not banned.

How was she to know that the UK government were reneging on a legally binding contract?

I never said she had no right to travel to Iran. But when you do so as an Iranian citizen, if you get into bother the expectation of assistance from the UK govt should be precisely zero.

The UK govt reneged over 40yrs ago. I'm pretty sure Iranian citizens would have been pretty aware of their history , especially at such a turbulent time in it. And especially journalists?

If I could explain something to you, because I think many English people are unaware of this. Nazanin was born in Iran, a country which does not recognise dual nationality, so she therefore has to travel there using her Iranian passport and not her British passport.

[andyA700]

Eric Mc said:

768 said:

It's the UK government's fault?

Simplistic comment in the extreme.

The reneging of the contract is absolutely 100% the UK government's fault.
The seizing of Ms Radcliffe in retaliation was absolutely 100% the Iranian government's fault.
Making the situation worse by making inane and dumb comments was absolutely 100% Boris Johnson's fault.

This 100%

[Murph7355]

andyA700 said:

If I could explain something to you, because I think many English people are unaware of this. Nazanin was born in Iran, a country which does not recognise dual nationality, so she therefore has to travel there using her Iranian passport and not her British passport.

Thank you (though I 100% understood that position. As noted, most nations have similar rules even if they accept dual nationality as a "thing").

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Eric Mc said:

What situation did she put herself in?

She had every right to go to Iran.

As far as she was aware, there was no reason not to. She had no beef with the regime and as far as she was aware, they had no beef with her. British people travel to and from Iran - it's not banned.

How was she to know that the UK government were reneging on a legally binding contract?

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Cold said:

Eric Mc said:

Simplistic comment in the extreme.

The reneging of the contract is absolutely 100% the UK government's fault.
The seizing of Ms Radcliffe in retaliation was absolutely 100% the Iranian government's fault.
Making the situation worse by making inane and dumb comments was absolutely 100% Boris Johnson's fault.

Is it possible that the two incidents were never connected until someone had the idea to make them so? Is it possible that we don't know the whole truth about this story?

Quite, for all we know Boris' comments were correct....he just didn't get the story memo.

[Eric Mc]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

Eric Mc said:

What situation did she put herself in?

She had every right to go to Iran.

As far as she was aware, there was no reason not to. She had no beef with the regime and as far as she was aware, they had no beef with her. British people travel to and from Iran - it's not banned.

How was she to know that the UK government were reneging on a legally binding contract?

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

I would expect any multi-million £ arms deal would have plenty of legal aspects to it.

Of course, when when an agreement has been signed by a government, the agreement can sometimes end up being broken or not honoured. The Northern Ireland protocol is another example of a UK government trying to wriggle out of something it had already signed up to.

[Murph7355]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

Because we paid it

It was never in doubt that money was owing.

At the time, embargoes were being slapped down and I suspect international politics with the US were at play.

We should have paid it immediately. In coins.

[Randy Winkman]

CoolHands said:

I will never understand how someone (Eric) who I assume is rational because I think he works as a tax expert, cannot follow logic in cases like this. It’s like a blind spot. You can’t put forward any arguments as he just deflects them with (in my opinion) irrational answers.

And I cant understand how a story about someone that comes out of an Iranian prison after 8 years away from her husband and daughter can be so full of negativity about her instead of happiness.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Murph7355 said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

Because we paid it

It was never in doubt that money was owing.

At the time, embargoes were being slapped down and I suspect international politics with the US were at play.

We should have paid it immediately. In coins.

Just because it was paid doesnt mean it was legally owed.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Eric Mc said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

Eric Mc said:

What situation did she put herself in?

She had every right to go to Iran.

As far as she was aware, there was no reason not to. She had no beef with the regime and as far as she was aware, they had no beef with her. British people travel to and from Iran - it's not banned.

How was she to know that the UK government were reneging on a legally binding contract?

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

I would expect any multi-million arms deal would have plenty of legal aspects to it.

Irrelevant gumf.

So would I, one of the parties no longer existed though and handing over cash to state sponsors of terrorism doesnt sit well.

[pequod]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

So would I, one of the parties no longer existed though and handing over cash to state sponsors of terrorism doesn't sit well.

Not wishing to derail the thread but, how many other countries have defaulted on repayments for a variety of reasons? I believe there are quite a few when the defaulter is unable or unwilling to repay... unless it's forced by factors beyond the country's control or for political expediency.

I still wonder if there is more to this Iranian woman than we are being told?

[Murph7355]

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

Murph7355 said:

Abdul Abulbul Amir said:

How do you know it was legally binding...have you seen it?

Because we paid it

It was never in doubt that money was owing.

At the time, embargoes were being slapped down and I suspect international politics with the US were at play.

We should have paid it immediately. In coins.

Just because it was paid doesnt mean it was legally owed.

Perhaps not.

You think they'd have paid 400m (plus interest no doubt) just to release 3 hostages.

It was due. The reasons it wasn't paid are for history books now. Some noble, some not so I expect.

[longblackcoat]

pequod said:

I still wonder if there is more to this Iranian woman than we are being told?

So what are you suggesting?