[rbrtdrmpc-]

Please to all the posters, stick your head out of your butt for a sec, this Iran thing is not something related to just some poor dev unable to publish on their store, it is a world wide dumb reaction all started from the USA foreign agenda. I'll give you an example to highlight how f'd up is the situation, in Italy, country with a quite respectful relation with Iran, banks started kicking out clients (with a one month notice) like my friend just because she was BORN in Teheran grew up in Italy (she's a fucking grown up working as a doctor), with dual italian/iranian citizenship due to the ius sanguinis (iranian mother, italian father) just because of the USA sanctions. If that's not WRONG, tell me what it is.

[yyyk]

"with dual italian/iranian citizenship due to the ius sanguinis (iranian mother, italian father)"

How did she even get Iranian citizenship? Iranian law does not provide citizenship to children of Iranian mothers with foreign fathers even if they are born in Iran, and the Guardian Council has so far vetoed all attempts to change it[0].

[0] https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/05/iran-nati...

[rbrtdrmpc-]

Didn't know, thanks, i should ask if I am wrong about her father, though she has italian citizenship and she was born in Teheran, that was the reason for her being kicked out from the bank, that's what i know for sure.

Just to restate, i'm quite sure her mother is iranian and i thought her father is italian because in Italy ius sanguinis law is the rule, so one of the parents should be italian born to get the citizenship from birth, if i mixed up the nationality of both parents is me being dumb, so thanks for pointing that out.

[rbrtdrmpc-]

Found this[0] though, is this retroactive?

[0] https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/435807/Iranian-nationality-...

[yyyk]

It has been voted for by parliament (again) but not yet approved by the other authorities.

[pfortuny]

This is really upsetting: it is exactly what happened elsewhere like 80 years ago: laws against people just because of their birth conditions.

Edit: and people abiding by them because “it is the law”...

[bhouston]

This is wrong what is going on and we should talk about it, but please stay away from Godwin'ing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[pfortuny]

Oh no: I am not staying away from REALITY. This is not a metaphor, this is just plain facts: they are being treated like that exactly because they share a trait at birth. In this case being Iranian. In the past, being Jew.

This is exactly where reality meets history. And not as a metaphor.

[dang]

Please don't up the flamewar ante like this. It doesn't help—it just destroys the discussion, at which point no information is being exchanged and no minds or hearts will ever change.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[FussyZeus]

[flagged]

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological battle, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. It's not what this site is for—and it destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[jankotek]

It is targeting everyone.

As an European I would love to visit Iran. Amazing country, some friends there, direct flights... But I would lose ESTA and would need to apply for a visa before visiting US.

[rbrtdrmpc-]

I feel you, this friend of mine had the same thought one year ago, he then decided that it will be ok for him to not visit the US in the next ten years then he went to Iran and had a lovely time there, he was so overwhelmed by the iranians and didn't regret anything. One of the funniest thing he saw was this kid dancing with a donkey costume and blasting a trumpet (you know the annoying vuvuzela thing) in a mosquee, what a dangerous country.

[saiya-jin]

A fantastic, cheap country where almost everybody speaks OK english, great and amazingly helpful people. And the most important thing - completely unspoiled by mass tourism. You just don't see that in the world where there is actually something to see anymore.

I gained much respect for persians and their history when doing a short trip there (Mont Damavand, Isfahan, Yazd & desert, Tehran).

Losing an ESTA for such an enriching experience? Definitely worth it. Plus when I flew through Miami last year, I had already new passport and all was OK.

[liuw]

It's such a shit show.

A few years back, one of my ex-colleagues who needed to travel to US frequently for work was stopped right before boarding a plane because he had a layover in one of the blacklisted countries while on holiday. He didn't even know he lost his ESTA.

[whermans]

Visit it. While you sitll can.

It's an amazing country. A price of "more paperwork to enter the USA" was an absolute bargain in my book.

[mc32]

The author left one of the protagonists out of the picture completely. The Iranian regime. If the US and US-based companies have a fault in this, so too does the recalcitrant regime which should be called out for its part in this.

[catmanjan]

That is straight up racism.

[espeed]

Regardless what you think of the tactics, the sanctions are an economic vise -- a negotiating tactic to leverage a position -- it has nothing to do with race.

[geff82]

A tactic that takes 80 million people as hostages. Just as a side note: you can not give back Iranian citizenship (if that would be possible most Iranians in the West I know would do it). This concept does not exist. So even if you are the most western, fully integrated European which happens to have some Iranian roots you are still treated in a racist way because those new sanctions are so totally all-encompassing that you get fully subjected to it even if no practical connection to Iran exists.

[londons_explore]

You can totally "accidentally fail to declare" it. That's what I'd do living anywhere in Europe. For the most part, Europe won't put you in prison for ticking the wrong box on a form.

[geff82]

But it gets very difficult to never declare your place of birth, which, as mentioned by the OP, can be the same problem as having an Iranian passport.

[pryce]

It is an objective fact that this president made the central issue of his campaign portraying two groups - Muslims and Hispanics - as a threat to the United States, and his two key differentiating policies from his peers in the republican primaries reflect that - respectively his "Muslim Ban" and "The Wall".

It is absurd to characterise this president's foreign policy on Iran as separate from that background.

[nashashmi]

He is anti-iran because of support from middle eastern and Israeli regimes, not much to do with race in this policy.

[h0l0cube]

I think you're getting caught up in semantics here. If you want to tie this back to the 'actual racism' you're inferring, the prejudice of the US polity towards the Iran people is what enables this policy to be enacted without any serious counter of moral concern from the populous. This actual racism is what permits the foreign policy, that ruins the lives of innocent people in far off countries. Further to that, if someone is okay with their government using this tactic on the innocent people of one foreign country vs another, you can tease apart their actual racism from nationalism.

[espeed]

You're missing the point. The situation is much more nuanced than that.

The Iranian people are not the target, the West wants to see their potential released.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20303107

[RobertoG]

I see, so, this game with Iran, is motivated because "the West wants to see their potential released".

When is the turn of the Saudis? Is Iraq potential totally released already?

And the grandparent is the one missing the point..

I want to recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

Or the transcription: https://genius.com/General-wesley-clark-seven-countries-in-f...

Your definition of the West is pretty narrow, by the way, because everybody was OK with the deal until the USA decided unilaterally to break it.

[espeed]

Yes, PNAC's plan to dislodge the middle east was formed in the '90's. Their strategy and tactics included a series of kinetic wars that culminated with Syria, which they viewed as the most politically challenging situation. In contrast, Trump's strategy and tactics is based on economic force rather than kinetic wars. For economic force to work, the Iranian people must rise and act. Sanctions put the Iranian government into a weakened position and provide an opportunity for the people to act. The globalists don't believe in this strategy and will likely return to their strategy of kinetic war in the next administration if this doesn't work. The Iranian people are in a strong position to choose to act and prove the globalists wrong and kinetic wars are obsolete.

[qubex]

The reasons for the power asymmetry do not affect the severity of the asymmetry.

[alehul]

I’m trying to understand and make this analogous to what you were replying to:

The reasons for the act (racist or not) does not affect it being racism?

[gwd]

I think part of the problem is the fact that there's a real phenomenon that's important to talk about and describe, but rather than invent a new term, that the word 'racism' has repurposed to describe it instead.

200 years ago, everyone would have understood "racism" to mean what you have implied it means: conscious individual racial prejudice. And of course, one problem that (say) blacks in the US face is widespread, individual, conscious racial prejudice.

But there's yet another problem blacks face: the mechanisms of society as a whole disproportionately cause problems for black people, even when nobody involved is consciously prejudiced. When this was pointed out, people would respond, "But nobody in this organization is prejudiced". Well, it doesn't matter if the people are prejudiced or not, the emergent property of the system as a whole affects black people as though it was set up by people who are racist; and so the system is called "racist", even if nobody in it is trying to be racist.

I think the argument here is the same: Iranians are facing persecution for no other reason than the country they were born in. It doesn't matter if people making the policies of the US government is prejudiced against Iranians as individuals or not; the net effect is the same.

(FWIW I think the concept of "institutional racism" is useful, but the overloading of the term 'racist' to describe it is counterproductive in the long run.)

[qubex]

Surely the right term for what you describe is “discriminatory”. All forms of undesirable -ism fall within the broader, general purview of “discrimination”.

[qubex]

Perhaps it makes more sense if I phrase it thusly: the consequences of the decision do not depend upon why the decision was taken. It certainly sounds like a discriminatory practice, based on what is indicated. For sure, even if it had a decorous reason behind it, the consequences thereof are no less severe and irksome.

[sokoloff]

In this case, it seems that the companies are following a reasonable interpretation of the law of the land in which they operate. I don't the vast asymmetry of "break this law, do a [relatively] small amount of good for a [relatively] small number of people, put a substantial amount of the company at risk" makes any kind of logical business sense.

[mschuster91]

No it's not, Americans have had difficulties getting banking in Germany because banks fear having US customers exposes them to liabilities.

It's all a huge pile of steaming manure, especially that the US considers companies in the US liable for things that their holding or child companies do in other countries - even if the behavior is fully legal in the place where it happens.

And banks and other corporations with even the tiniest amount of US connections are rightfully scared of excessive punishments dealt by the US "judicial" system.

[chaosite]

That's because having US citizens as customers requires them to file tax information for those customers with the US government, and the German banks don't want the overhead.

[q3k]

And that's because for some unknown reason the US is one of the few countries that tax based on citizenship, and not residence [1]. It's absurd. Even resigning your citizenship is taxed [2].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Citizen...

[2] - https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/06/16/tax-consequences-of-r...

[arcticfox]

> It's absurd

As someone who has paid a truckload of these taxes: I don't think it's that absurd. You're not double-taxed. And if you want to relinquish citizenship, you can.

[saiya-jin]

> No it's not, Americans have had difficulties getting banking in Germany because banks fear having US customers exposes them to liabilities.

That's just reaction to stupid US FATCA laws pushed by US down the throat all countries out there. Same is for Switzerland - quite hard to open an account for anybody qualifying as US citizen, although banks are mostly fully compliant with FATCA processes. But this was pushed by the guy before the Big Blonde

[mpweiher]

Oh, not just Americans. I am German. When I moved to the US for a while, most German banks wanted nothing more to do with me.

[mcherm]

> This is straight up racism

>> No it's not, [banks are scared if the US]

Yes, banks are scared of the US. And perhaps the racism stems from the Italian bank, perhaps it stems from the US government, perhaps it stems from the Iranian definition of citizenship, perhaps all share a part of the blame. But regardless of who gets the blame, it most definitely IS straight up racism.

[bsaul]

So, racism now doesn't mean race ? Or does race includes nationality in your definition ?

[izacus]

What's the practical difference? You're being punished due to a place you've been born in. Not something you did wrong. Just a luck of nature.

And that's wrong. By any moral standard.

[enedil]

If you're in a place where being woman is disadvantageous, would you call such disadvantage "racist"? Clearly it fits your description. If you think it's wrong, then I agree with you. If you think it's racist, then no way, it isn't and you just don't know the words you use.

[bsaul]

You’re just using a broader abstraction to define the original problem. This usually doesn’t help solving or understanding problems in general (you end up with general statement as « it’s wrong », which frankly doesn’t lead to anything).

As an example, it would be interesting to know if relocating to some other country, or give up your nationality solves the issue. In the case of racism, it wouldn’t for sure. In this case, i don’t know.

[DanBC]

Race includes nationality in any useful definition of racism, and has done for many many years.

From 2010, written into UK law: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/9

> 9 Race

> (1)Race includes—

> (a)colour;

> (b)nationality;

> (c)ethnic or national origins.

From 1976 (over 40 year ago), written into the previous UK law: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74/enacted

> 1 Racial discrimination

[...]

> (ii) which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins of the person to whom it is applied ; and

[skissane]

See also Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:

> In this Convention, the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Both "descent" and "national or ethnic origin" appear relevant here.

https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b3940.pdf

[alehul]

In the top-level comment, the issue was presumably Iranian citizenship (not descent), or, in other words, nationality.

[DomreiRoam]

By definition it is more xenophobia than racism according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia .

[qaq]

You do realize that Iran means "the land of Aryans"?

[emiliobumachar]

Interesting, but so what? Can Aryans not be the victims of racism?

[qaq]

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

[raxxorrax]

It is extremely shitty behavior, but not racism. The sanctions are in place because the Iranian government is racist and innocents suffer from that, which could in turn increase racism again.

[toong]

Yes, it is.

[tomxor]

> That is straight up racism.

More specifically discrimination of nationality, but almost the same as discrimination of race in this case. Either way, it's not fair on any of the people affected.

[nashashmi]

Granted that US and Iran had good relations in the 1970s. And many people exmigrated from Iran after things changed. Those people are also treated the same way.

[RobertoG]

Have your friend checked with a lawyer? Because I have serious doubts that is legal in the EU.

[buboard]

That is the intented effect of sanctions.