Iran: the “hostage crisis” that never was
“Hostages”, “detainees”, “captives” or “prisoners”? What should we have called the 15 British navy personnel held in Iran for 13 days? I’m sure the issue was raised in your newsroom – It certainly was in mine, the Financial Times.
The general conclusion we reached was that using the term “hostages” was wrong, and we opted for “detainees” instead – apart from a few slips. We even carried an article about how UK diplomats were desperate to avoid using the word.
According to the Collins Dictionary – not the Oxford one, I know, but it’s just as thick – a hostage is “a person given to or held by a person, organisation, etc. as a security or pledge or for ransom, release, exchange for prisoners”; while to detain means “to delay; hold back; stop; to confine or hold in custody – detainee is a person kept in custody”.
The difference might seem subtle, but it is very important.
For example, the Daily Mail’s headline on March 13, the day after the crisis began, was “Marines taken hostage by Iran”, while the Daily Telegraph went with “Marines seized by Iranian guards”. What do these headlines tell the reader?
The Mail’s suggests that 15 UK citizens have been withheld for a ransom, i.e. The Iranians want something in return for the release of the sailors.
The Telegraph’s tells us that 15 UK citizens have been withheld, but the reason remains unclear and therefore is more balanced — i.e. the Iranians have captured 15 UK citizens, but we cannot tell you (the reader) exactly why because we don’t know.
Later on, the Iranians claimed that 15 British navy personnel entered their waters; the British government flatly denied it. What emerged in this case was an international dispute.
We as reporters and subs – unless we have compelling evidence – can’t take sides in our work. So if there is a dispute we must attempt to use the most neutral and least inflammatory term possible.
The MoD’s “GPS evidence” was as reliable as the coordinates given by the Iranians. This meant that no journalist was in a position to determine if the 15 marines had committed a crime or not, just as we couldn’t confirm whether the British marines had trespassed into Iranian waters or not.
Therefore the correct term to define the 15 UK citizens held in Iran had to be detainees, captives or prisoners, as the Iranians did not capture them to blackmail Britain, but opted to hold them for having allegedly committed an incursion.
If someone is accused of killing another person, the police will arrest a suspect as a precautionary measure. That does not mean that the police have abducted them or taken them hostage — they have arrested them for a suspected crime. The person arrested might dispute that, but will have to prove their innocence.
In the UK the red tops and the mid-market papers didn’t bother with any of this: for them the main issue was to sensationalise. However, this is hardly news. What was more worrying in the whole affair was to see how the broadsheets switched from “detainees/captives” to “hostages”.
The shift clearly occurred after George W. Bush demanded on March 31 that “The Iranians must give back the hostages.” This, in some way, permitted the “responsible press” to change the tone of their reporting. The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph and The Times all switched to “hostages”.
However, the appearance of “Iran” and “hostages” in the same headline is highly inflammatory. It takes us back to the 1979-80 crisis when Iran stormed the US embassy in Tehran to take over 50 US citizens hostage, after making a revolution that ended US power in the country and kicked out a regime backed by the CIA.
The Americans have never forgiven Iran for that. Equating the recent crisis with that of 1979-1980 is a gift to the hawks and fuels the drive for war on Iran.
In 1979 Iran wanted the US to hand over the former Shah of Iran, who had fled to America, to face justice in Iran. The exchange was clear in the 1979-81 crisis, not in 2007.
Of course, during the crisis the US allowed Iran access to five of its citizens held in Iraq, while the Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi, who went missing in Iraq in February, was released by his captors. There were suggestions that these moves were made as part of a bargain for the British sailors’ release.
Does that make them “hostages”? If so, you have to be consistent and draw the necessary conclusion that the five Iranians held in Iraq are also hostages held by the Americans, that Jalal Shafari was taken hostage by the Americans, and indeed that all prisoners of the United States held in Iraq, in Guantanamo or under “rendition” schemes in Middle East dictatorships are hostages kidnapped by the US in order to pursue its political goals.
Now that “our” marines are back home, newspapers have taken an even more lax approach to the issue and the word hostage seems “prettier” than “captives” or “detainees”.
If you are an editor or sub-editor and you are reading this, make sure that you try your best to change things in your newsroom.
Financial Times journalist
