Jolie King and Mark Firkin latest: Bloggers’ drone arrest in Iran ‘not political’

Australia's foreign affairs minister today said she does not believe the detentions in Iran of two British-Australian women and an Australian man are politically motivated.

Jolie King and her Australian boyfriend Mark Firkin have been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for some 10 weeks, having reportedly been arrested for flying a drone without a licence.

In an unrelated case, a second British-Australian woman, a Melbourne-based academic whose name has not been made public, has been in the same prison for almost a year

Senator Marise Payne said she has raised their cases “many times” with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif.

“We have no reason to think that these arrests are connected to international concern over Iran’s nuclear programme, United Nations sanction enforcement or maritime security concerning the safety of civilian shipping,” she said.