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Atlanta (MyFox) April 9 – Britain’s MOD has banned all military service members from talking to the media in return for payment, a day after it said the 15 marines and sailors who were held captive in Iran could sell their stories.
Defense Secretary Des Browne issued a statement saying the navy faced a “very tough call” over its initial decision to allow the payments. The new ban will not affect any of the 15 service members held captive in Iran who already given accounts, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
In one of the first accounts, Faye Turney, the sole woman in the detained crew, said that she “felt like a traitor” for agreeing to her captors’ demands to appear on Iranian TV and that she believed they had measured her for a coffin.
British patrol boat minutes before Iranian attack.
The Sun newspaper also reported that Turney, 25, was told by her captors that her 14 male colleagues had been released while she alone was being held.
The financial arrangements for Turney and Batchelor were not officially disclosed, but Turney said the offer she accepted was not the largest she had been offered. There were reports that Turney had accepted over $200,000 to tell her story to the Sun and Britain’s ITV News.
They were for it before they were against it!
I confess to being a bit confused about this. Doesn’t the UK have freedom of speech? And why is everyone so upset — to judge from the coverage in The Guardian, anyway — that soldiers would sell their stories to the press?
Well the answer to that isd yes the UK has freedom of speach, but activates the security opt out where its armed forces are concerned. The freedom of speech is not an absolute, If I’m going to attack somewhere on Monday, my troops shouldn’t have the right to sell that to the Sunday papers and make money at the risk of their comrades lives. Similarly there may be things that may endanger future captives if you allow currently released captives to sell their stories.
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TEHRAN, Iran (WashPost/Reuters) April 10 – Iran’s armed forces are preparing to release a documentary and book about the detention and “confessions” of 15 British sailors and marines held captive in Iran, a military commander said.
“A documentary about their arrest, interrogation and confessions … is being prepared and soon it will hit the market,” Commander Alireza Afshar, cited as deputy for “defence propaganda,” said in a faxed statement.
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The 14 servicemen and one woman said in a statement given at an official news conference after their return to England they had been blindfolded, bound, kept in isolation and threatened with up to seven years in jail.
Iran has dismissed the news conference as “propaganda.”
“Instead of thanking and welcoming the Islamic Republic for its clemency in pardoning the sailors, the childish staged theatre … once more displayed Britain’s aggressive habit,” Afshar said.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."