
Former Norway PM held at Washington airport over 2014 visit to Iran - azuajef
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norway-pm-bondevik-held-washington-dulles-airport-2014-visit-iran
======
equil
While I don't like the recent executive order from Trump, this situation seems
unrelated to it, instead revolving around the earlier H.R.158 [0] bill that
passed at the tail end of 2015 (the article does mention this in passing),
which disqualifies any non-citizen from entering the US under the visa waiver
program if they have traveled to one of the seven countries since march 1st,
2011 (amongst other things). Trump's recent EO explicitly makes exceptions for
diplomatic passports, and I worry that conflating these documents will only
undermine the rhetorical grounds for repealing them.

I just want to underscore the law at fault instead of fueling partisanship.

[0] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-
bill/158](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158)

~~~
lawless123
>But he said he had never had a problem visiting the US before.

Has he visited the US between that law passing and before Trumps ban without
any issues?

~~~
CaptSpify
If anyone has more knowledge about this let me know but...

I think the decisions about who to detain are typically arbitrary and decided
by that particular agent at the time.

~~~
Arnt
Difficult to believe that a junior agent dares to stop someone with a
Norwegian diplomatic passport.

~~~
coldtea
So you mean that terrorists just need to create officially looking Norwegian
diplomatic passports?

~~~
halomru
Or pretend to have lost their passport and get a new passport without stamp.
Or get a secondary passport that's made available by most governments because
of issues like this one.

But you are right in principle. Letting people through because they look
important is a big security hole.

------
muglug
Well I feel _much_ safer knowing that we’re vetting Prime Ministers
thoroughly. You can never be too sure!!!

~~~
canadian_voter
<sarcasm> How can we be sure he wasn't radicalized during his visit to Iran?
Surely such an inconvenience is a small price to pay for the safety and
security of our great nation? If he's got nothing to hide, what's he afraid
of? </sarcasm>

------
js2
I feel worse for the wrestlers: ”On Friday, Iran took retaliatory action by
banning US wrestlers from participating in the Freestyle World Cup, one of the
most prestigious competitions in international wrestling.”

~~~
gcp
The USA banned the European Champion in Taekwondo from entering (he's
originally from Iran), thereby barring him from the US Open.

(It's an interesting story: his brother _was_ actually a suicide bomber.
Nevertheless he himself did get cleared for entry after vetting. The new Trump
rules caught him as collateral last week.)

~~~
bostand
This is the first time I hear about a suicide bomber from Iran.

Do you have any references to that?

~~~
gcp
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brother-of-
belgia...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brother-of-belgian-
terrorist-heading-for-the-olympics-a-1103743.html)

The news articles I'm reading now have corrected their origin from Iranian to
Moroccan, it seems.

------
ensiferum
I say the rest of the world should build a wall around the US to keep the
americans there.

~~~
throwawaypa542
Sounds like a plan. Then, 'The Americans' can withdraw every last bit of
foreign aid and military support for western europe, japan, etc.

Have fun with Russia and China.

~~~
ensiferum
About that, I'm not really taking sides here but when US drives an aircraft
carrier to the Mediterranian or sets up a military base in Turkey right next
to the Russian border everyone thinks that it's totally fine. If Russia did
the same it'd immediately be reflected as an "act of aggression" in the
western media.

I really don't think Russia is how the western media portrays it. And I live
in a country with a "bad" history with Russia.

------
camus2
I'm not sure what to make of that news. Customs/airport laws/regulations are
bad or a Norway politician should be above the law just because of his social
class, so holding him is scandalous because the law shouldn't apply to him?

~~~
egwynn
I’m not an expert here, but in the article it says he had a diplomatic
passport. If that was so, and he’s an accredited diplomat, then the Vienna
Convention (ratified in the USA and Norway both) applies here. It says that
diplomats are not to be arrested or detained.

[http://www.corpsdiplomatique.cd/VIENNA_CONVENTION_1961_ON_DI...](http://www.corpsdiplomatique.cd/VIENNA_CONVENTION_1961_ON_DIPLOMATIC_RELATIONS.pdf)

Article 29

    
    
        The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He
        shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The
        receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall
        take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his
        person, freedom or dignity.
    

You can disagree with our participation in the treaty, but it’s what we’ve
got!

~~~
WildUtah
Since he's not a government official—the story is quite explicit that he's
working for a private organization—he's fraudulently travelling on a
diplomatic passport. He should have been arrested at the border, interrogated,
barred permanently from the USA, and deported.

~~~
egwynn
That's possible. But to me it's not totally obvious. He said the US embassy in
Oslo checked/authorized his travel credentials. So either he's lying or the US
embassy fucked up.

Either way, it sounds like situations like these used to be handled a little
more smoothly/amicably. If two nations are friendly to each other, and one
fucks up, what's the use in antagonism?

~~~
__derek__
Possibly related is last week's purge of State Department personnel[1]. With
State iced out by the Administration and CBP let off the reins, it makes sense
that there would be miscommunication there.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/state-
depart...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/state-department-
purge-trump-foreign-policy)

------
chopin
>Speaking to the TV2 channel, Bondevik expressed further concern about the
Trump administration’s tactics. “I understand the fear of terror, but one
should not treat entire ethnic groups in such a way,” he said.

>“I must admit that I fear the future. There has been a lot of progress over
the last 10 years, but this gives great cause for concern, in line with the
authoritarian leaders we see controlling other major countries.”

I'd be curious to know of which "progress" Bondevik is talking here. My
takeaway from the Western reaction on perceived terrorist threats is pretty
much: the terrorists have won.

~~~
StavrosK
Given that "the terrorists'" (Osama's, at least) goal was to have americans
question their government's foreign policy, they most certainly have not won:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friend...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friends_son_being_searched_by_the_tsa/c5cabqo/?st=iypxs7mp&sh=68938c28)

~~~
__derek__
Al Qaeda and ISIL/ISIS/Daesh are different beasts. The latter's stated
intention has been the establishment of a modern caliphate that counts all of
the world's Sunni Muslims as citizens and that wages a war against the rest of
the world (Shia, Jewish, Christian, whatever). It wants all Sunnis to be
ejected from the West and sent back to live under its caliphate. Given that,
it "wins" when the West (a) rejects Muslims (especially Sunnis fleeing ISIL)
or (b) talks about Islamism as an existential threat (i.e. lionizes ISIL).

~~~
StavrosK
Sure, which means there's no "the terrorists". It's all different people.

------
darkhorn
The point is that it is not about terrorism, it is about Iran vs Israel.

------
jankotek
Does everyone have a memory loss? Just a few years ago Obama was going to bomb
Iran back to the stone age.

And US border force always harassed people who visited enemy countries.
Several people were not allowed to enter, because they visited Iran, or other
'axis of evil' country.

~~~
krapp
>Just a few years ago Obama was going to nuke Iran back to stone age.

[citation needed]

~~~
stefantalpalaru
It wasn't Obama. Hillary was very nonchalant about it, though:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DNCleaks/comments/5945ho/hillary_ju...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DNCleaks/comments/5945ho/hillary_justified_bombing_iran_in_a_june_2013/)

(as always on Reddit, don't vote if you arrive with an external HTTP Referer
header or you risk being banned 3 days on the whole site for participating in
a voting brigade)

~~~
__derek__
Bombing nuclear enrichment facilities is not bombing them into the Stone Age.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
The "Stone Age" bit might have been a reference to the "totally obliterate
them" comment she made in 2008 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O894bXmqqGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O894bXmqqGU)
:

> Well the question was ‘if Iran was to launch a nuclear response be, what
> would our response be’ and I want Iran to know that if I’m the President, we
> will attack Iran; and I want them to understand that because it does mean
> that they have to look very carefully at their society because whatever
> stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the
> next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack
> on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible
> thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because
> that perhaps would deter them from doing something that would be reckless,
> foolish and tragic.

