British Couple detained in Iran

These two clearly made a planned decision to go to Iran against government advice. That in itself invalidates any travel insurance they may have bought.
Iran is a dangerous place for British people. Look at the awful experience of Nazhari Radcliffe. In that case our government had to pay some outstanding money to Iran. Her treatment in captivity was grim. I can’t understand why well educated, mature individuals would fly in the face of sensible advice. I feel unhappy with my reaction which is along the - they made their bed - lines

A pair of hubristic eejits. I'm sure most Iranians are 'lovely' but their government isn't.

Homestead62

The Foreign Office website has tons of advice for different countries. I don't understand why more people do not read it before travelling abroad.

No need to read the FO advice. If you’ve been anywhere near a tv/radio/ newspaper/ internet you would know that Iran hasn’t been a safe country to visit since the Ayatollah took back power in 1979.
You can’t educate spam.

They surely understood how unstable that whole area is.. how arrogant or stupid to wander round interviewing people.. they could easily be seen as spies by the Iranian forces..

Our neighbours where we lived previously were Iranian, the mother and father came after The Revolution, their religion was Zoroastranism which is the ancient religion of Persia, very old pre dates Christianity. They can't practice that religion there I think anyone who does is regarded as an apostate. We knew our neighbours well we were in that house for 20 years next door to them. Eventually they all split up, father lived in Switzerland, son went to the US, mother went back to Iran she was very, very homesick for her homeland. Only the daughter remained, she and my son were great friends. When the daughter went to Iran to visit her mum, we really worried about her, she usually asked us to keep an eye on the house. Born here she was a very western girl, well the whole family were. We always said to her before she went, not that she needed reminding, "make sure your headscarf stays firmly on your head" she was more than a bit nervous about going there and knew she had to tread carefully..

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Against Foreign Office advice. The world is not your playground.

Absolutely, why on earth anyone would travel against the gov advice is beyond me.

Iam64

These two clearly made a planned decision to go to Iran against government advice. That in itself invalidates any travel insurance they may have bought.
Iran is a dangerous place for British people. Look at the awful experience of Nazhari Radcliffe. In that case our government had to pay some outstanding money to Iran. Her treatment in captivity was grim. I can’t understand why well educated, mature individuals would fly in the face of sensible advice. I feel unhappy with my reaction which is along the - they made their bed - lines

I have to agree!

It's hard to comprehend how any intelligent persons would go against the sensible advice of the Foreign Office, but there are people who are drawn to dangerous adventures. Unfortunately they cause trouble then for themselves and others.
I have some sympathy for them though. They're decent people who like adventures, even though so misguided in this case. It's dreadful for their families.

Self entitled ignoramuses

No doubt they will now expect the Foreign Office to get them home.

If you’re standing on the cliff which is crumbling and everyone says don’t go near the edge it’s dangerous and you said well I want to see what it looks like and took a step forward and the cliff crumbled It would be sad but totally in your own hands, your decision, your fate.
Just the same they thought they knew best and went against advice It’s arrogant and foolish and could put others in danger and cause a lot of unnecessary work I think they should be left there to sort it out for themselves they are adults and it was their decision and not really a hard decision either.
Deluded, arrogant, foolish

"Ok let me who has never made a mistake throw the first condemnation. Does that work for you? I guess you've always made the wisest decision. Yes what they did was foolish but people are coming across as very unpleasant almost gleeful about the way this couple must be suffering. I feel sorry for them as I wouldnt wish what's happened to them on my worst enemy".

I don't appreciate the sarcasm towards me, let me answer your question. I have made mistakes that have impacted my life, but I suffered the consequences, but I would not be arrogant or stupid enough to not take the advice from the FO stating clearly the country was dangerous. That was stupid. The FO has people who need there help badly but they now have to spend time helping these fools and it could have been avoided.
No sympathy from me at all.

I would also say it is not gleeful to express a opinion, you expressed yours and I think you ate wrong.

Am I right in thinking that the wife is some kind of Professor of Psychology, or am I mixing up two news items? If so, it seems a bit ironic that she didn't see the bass-ackwardness of her later comment, "We were aware of the risks".
I imagine they just said, "That's OK, if we get into trouble the UK government will bail us out." It's tempting to say just leave 'em there but I like to think I have a little more humanity than that. Damnably irritating, though, when our Foreign Office has much more pressing things to attend to.

Anyone thinking of employing the services of a life coach (whatever that is) must be scratching their head and cancelling the cheque.

Her CV is going to have some interesting additions.

This will consume lots of Foreign Office staff and Ministerial time.

Calendargirl

^they’d reported how lovely the Iranians they had met were^

Probably a different reply if you asked them now,

I am sure that everyday Iranians are as lovely as these people reported, we must not cloud our opinions of a whole nation by the vocal and narrow minded religious leaders of the country. Iran, or Persia was once renowned for artists, poets and music and I don't think that even the banning of everything by the current religious leaders will have dimmed all of the civilisation and history of the people.

Having said this, I think they were seriously irresponsible for travelling against FO advice, they will now cause a lot of people a lot of hard work, diplomacy and mediating, simply down to their thinking that advice and rules do not apply to them.

HousePlantQueen

Calendargirl

they’d reported how lovely the Iranians they had met were

Probably a different reply if you asked them now,

I am sure that everyday Iranians are as lovely as these people reported, we must not cloud our opinions of a whole nation by the vocal and narrow minded religious leaders of the country. Iran, or Persia was once renowned for artists, poets and music and I don't think that even the banning of everything by the current religious leaders will have dimmed all of the civilisation and history of the people.

I agree about their wonderful artistic culture. I would love to go to Isfahan to see the Mosque there.

I don’t think anyone would argue that Iran is a beautiful country with lovely buildings, art and many lovely people but just like the idiots who went to peer into an erupting volcano when told to stay away this silly couple ‘knew best’ I have only contempt for them and I hate to think of all the money and time may have to be spent trying to rescue them !!
They need to sort themselves out or stay there after all they know best!!

BlueBelle

I don’t think anyone would argue that Iran is a beautiful country with lovely buildings, art and many lovely people but just like the idiots who went to peer into an erupting volcano when told to stay away this silly couple ‘knew best’ I have only contempt for them and I hate to think of all the money and time may have to be spent trying to rescue them !!
They need to sort themselves out or stay there after all they know best!!

Quite.. They went to Isfahan and look what happened

Cossy

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Against Foreign Office advice. The world is not your playground.

Absolutely, why on earth anyone would travel against the gov advice is beyond me.

Arrogance.

I see people who are arrogant in real life, really go quite far in what they do[no experience regasrding ignoring gov advice re foreign travel though].

Why do people ignore good sensible advice from the foreign office and from people who know the country?

Travelling to Iran is dangerous and not advised.

I think that the lady ,who lost both hands was trying to feed a shark.

Staying in Nepal, I tried to warn my friends not to go out wearing bikini tops and to be careful of chatting to men freely as they would in the UK.
I heard their laughter as they pedalled off.
I know that they thought that I was old fashioned especially as they were the same age.
It grew dark and so did my fears.
They arrived back in tears and had nearly been raped.
A couple of days later they appeared in bath towels , which left nothing to the imagination in front of visitors, who were mortified and embarrassed.
Finally, as they got on a plane to India I dreaded to think what could happen to them.
And from the stories that I heard later -I wasn't even vaguely surprised.

I agree that this was not a wise decision.

I hope that through diplomatic discussions that they shall be released as quickly as possible.

Well if they are released quickly at our expense what would that teach them Frenchgal Do what we want and someone else will sort it out !!!

Reminds me of Brexit- people thinking it would only impact on immigrants and not them.

And people voting for Trump.

Yes horrible things will happen to some people but not to me- I'm different...

Well you're not.