Posted on 06/28/2009 6:41:08 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Britain today condemned the arrest of nine employees of the British embassy in Tehran and demanded their immediate release.
An Iranian news agency reported this morning that the Iranian workers had been detained for involvement in the post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic.
The arrests follow a week of escalating rhetoric against Britain, which was accused by the Iranian foreign minister of flying in jet-loads of spies to disrupt Iran's presidential elections on July 12.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, denied that the mission had been involved in any post-election unrest and called for the release of the embassy staff.
“This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable,” Mr Miliband told reporters during a security conference on the Greek island of Corfu.
“We want to see (them) released unharmed.”
News of the arrests emerged from Fars, a semi-official news agency, which said: “Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody.” It did not say when the arrests occurred.
The Foreign Office said that the Tehran embassy has a staff of more than 100, including at least 70 locally hired Iranians.
Mr Miliband said that about nine employees had been detained in total, but some had been released.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I was referring to last time - and stop calling me Shirley.
If the hostages are not British that is obviously a major difference.
or else what? more groveling?
“Do we have another hostage situation in the making?”
Not yet, I don’t think. Right now, these were Iranians arrested. But the regime is flexing its muscles, and trying to intimidate the Brits.
Maybe the regime will finally p!ss off enough countries to make them unite against the b$st$rds
Remember, these nine are staff at the British Embassy but they are Iranian nationals. This is part of the war of words with the west. So far, HMG has not given into them. For my money, they should be more proactive in this dispute.
I am hopeful that the Iranian people can cast off the shackles.
Arent you thinking of Champion the wonder horse?
All this posturing and blaming the Brits is good news. Regimes tend to do that kind of thing when they are getting a bit “shaky”.
Agreed. The more they point fingers outward, the more it usually signals that a regime’s grip on power is slipping.
Nope — I’m thinking of Fury, King of the Wild Stallions!
Who, I am sure, had more testosterone than Gordon Brown’s entire cabinet.
I hate saying this but weakness breeds contempt and the British behavior from a few years back brought this action. My tag line says it all, Oderint dum metuant, “Let them hate, so long as they fear”.
Thankfully, the pond was wide enough to protect me from that epic production during my formative years.
“Champion the wonder horse” and “skippy the bush kangaroo” did enough damage...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.