Iranian people are being failed by all political sides
While Ben Armbruster is right about the dangerous, bellicose John Bolton, all commentators seem to paint the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as a panacea (24 May). I’ve been to Iran and seen its lovely people crying that “we live in a big prison” or whispering “careful, there are spies everywhere”, not to mention being stopped daily myself by police. The JCPOA does nothing for the Iranians’ human rights and in fact may worsen the situation by entrenching the government and giving it legitimacy.
Richard Abram
Sydney, Australia
• Simon Tisdall is gravely mistaken in his somewhat distorted Spotlight article on Iran (24 May). US-Iran enmity dates back to 1953, when the US and UK overthrew democratically elected president Mosadegh and installed the Shah’s puppet regime. This led to the 1979 revolution and explains events today.
Christine Barnard
London, UK
Many Europeans are still lacking a voice
Thank you so much to Alberto Alemanno (We mobile citizens deserve to be heard in the European Union, 10 May). I am gratified to know that there are so many of us mute mobile Europeans, although disheartened that we continue to remain without a voice. There was one thing Alemanno overlooked, however – not every country allows their citizens to vote if they are not resident in that country at the time of elections.
As an Irish citizen resident in France, I can’t vote in national elections in either France or Ireland. I have made France my home, lived here for 20 years, bought a house, brought up my kids here; I pay my taxes, but I have no voice. I never miss an opportunity to vote in European elections, as how else can we change our status?
But I have not yet come across a French MEP candidate who considers my voice and the voices of the other 17 million like me to be worth fighting for.
Monique Gallwey
Saint-Louis, France
China’s frontier policy
about more than mosques
Some context is needed for your article How Beijing is quietly razing the mosques of Xinjiang (17 May). Since 1949 China’s frontier policy has been to absorb, erase or overwhelm with Han immigrants all the distinct peoples of its long frontier. The Uighurs stand in the way of the extension of China’s supremacy west – and southwards via its Belt and Road inititative. A weak and fragmenting Europe (17 May) might look eastwards at this geopolitical process with some alarm.
Douglas Porteous
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Mandatory monitoring will help fish populations
I read with interest in George Monbiot’s article that in the UK monitoring equipment for fishing boats is not mandatory (17 May). In British Columbia, where we have five species of wild salmon to protect – as well as halibut, cod and prawns – monitoring is mandatory. Every boat is equipped with a GPS so that the fisheries officials know exactly where they are and if they are in an area that is open for fishing. All boats have a camera that records the entire catch and when the boat comes into harbour every single fish is counted.
Our salmon are under threat despite this, but the industry is still considered sustainable. If the rest of the world did this, and if we controlled fishing on the high seas, we might have a chance of reversing this problem.
Jane McCall
Delta, British Columbia, Canada
Boris Johnson as PM is not worth the risk
Nausea: the very idea of Boris Johnson at the wheel of the ship-of-state roils my innards (24 May). Matthew d’Ancona characterises the Tory rationale: “Yes, he’s terrible; but he’ll see us through the storm until we find someone”. The Conservatives may well regret such a dismissal of their enfant terrible – it’s the voyage of the Magic Christian on the horizon.
RM Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
Perhaps the light was bent, not space/time
Robin McKie’s article The picture that changed everything (17 May) left me wondering how the star displacement predicted by Albert Einstein shows that the sun’s gravity bends space/time, rather than simply bending the light from the star more than Isaac Newton predicted.
Matthew Nicoll
Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada
