Some of you may recall that back in 2007, when the Iranian authorities kidnapped 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines to use as political pawns, a "Free the Navy 15" campaign was set up to hold peaceful protests outside the Iranian Embassy in London to demand their release.
I was involved with that campaign at the time in a personal, rather than professional, capacity - happening to be friends with the people who decided to set it up. While we were under no illusions that President Ahmedinejad buckled under the pressure of our home made protests, it was important that, with the rhetoric flowing from Tehran and the embarassing silence coming out of Downing Street, there was a clear signal that people in Britain found Iran's thuggish behaviour unacceptable.
Sadly, with the detention of five innocent British leisure sailors a few days ago, it seems that Iran may be up to its old games. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the crew of the Kingdom of Bahrain were seized only a couple of days before the Iranian Government announced their intention to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, in direct contravention of a new IAEA resolution requiring an end to enrichment.
Whilst it may of course be possible that the Kingdom did accidentally stray into Iranian waters, if reports that malfunctions had left them drifting are true, even that assertion should be taken with a pinch of salt - given that Iran lied about the location of HMS Cornwall in the previous crisis. Should the yacht have genuinely drifted into Iran's waters, the right response would be to give the sailors a ticking off, patch up their boat and send them back where they came from.
Worryingly, Iran's response has instead been to hang on to the sailors for almost a week already, and now to start making pronouncements about whether they had "evil intentions". Given the worry that Iran may well be using these British civilians as political pawns, the decision has been taken to restart what was Free the Navy 15 as "Free the Iran 5".
If Iran does not return these sailors swiftly, as is just, then it seems protests to call for their release may again be necessary. You can visit the Free the Iran 5 blog to find out more, and email [email protected] to receive emails about possible protests.
(NB I also ought to say at this point that I'm posting this entirely in a personal capacity as something that I think will be of interest to many Centre Right readers - the TPA is in no way involved in the campaign or the issue in general).
