Wednesday Arabic

With the Amanda Knox case hopefully reaching the 14th of its 15 minutes, we as travellers are reminded of one of the longer public cases of international detention in recent memory.  Happening just short of four years after her detention, her release comes on the heals of the two remaining hikers that were recently freed from Iran's detention system after two years.

Regardless of the circumstances behind the arrest, these detentions lead me to ask, "When travelling abroad, what do you do if a police officer detains you?"  (At this point, we'll assume that the foreign language you learned prior to travelling doesn't lead to a quick release).  Well, the attached article has one of the answers, which may be overlooked to the casual vacationer: seek consular representation.

Also mined from Foreign Policy online, "Locked Up Abroad" looks into some of the pitfalls of travelling abroad and - maybe more importantly for some of us - why some of those pitfalls exist.  Particularly good reading for those travelling to countries with less-than-stellar relations with their homeland, the article was my introduction to the Vienna Conference on Consular Relations (VCCR) that has been respected by some 170 countries since its meeting in 1963.

After reading the article for the first time, I felt fairly ashamed at some of the potential actions that our government has purportedly committed with regard to foreign detainees; though these accusations may not be true, the result of them still have the potential for increasingly negative outcomes for those of us abroad.  As a result, knowing one's rights while abroad should be known before starting the journey.