Two New Zealand social media influencers who were detained in Iran for almost four months have been released and have now left the country.
Social media influencers Christopher “Topher” Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray were undertaking a trip called Expedition Earth in which they aimed to travel across 90 countries in a Jeep. The two recorded their travels with near-daily vlogs and Instagram posts, and documented their border crossing into Iran from Turkey in early July.
Shortly after that, they disappeared offline, and all social media posts ceased. The Expedition Earth GPS locator, which previously allowed people to live-track their location, is offline, with a notereading: “The tracker has been temporarily removed for the team’s safety during this region.”
A source familiar with the situation confirmed to the Guardian that the pair had been held by security forces in Iran. In the months of silence, the pair’s online followers, human rights experts and Iran specialists grew increasingly concerned for their welfare – and that they could become pawns in a geopolitical environment where Iranian security forces are incentivised to detain foreign tourists to avoid pressure from foreign governments.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday morning that the government had been working for months to get the pair out of the country, and that she felt “great relief” that they were now out. “I’m delighted they’re safe,” she said.
Ardern said that the detention of the pair had not softened New Zealand’s criticism of the Iranian regime and security forces’ violence against protesters. “It did not. Of course, we have shared our condemnation. At the same time, we have had also a duty of care to try and ensure that those New Zealanders were able to exit Iran,” she said.
“We’ve worked very hard to do both.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday morning that two New Zealanders that had been receiving consular assistance were safe and well and had now exited the country. They would not comment further for privacy reasons.
Richwhite and Thackwray are minor celebrities in New Zealand. Expedition Earth has accumulated more than 300,000 followers, and the pair’s wedding earlier this year was covered by multiple New Zealand newspapers. Topher Richwhite is the son of New Zealand rich-lister David Richwhite, one of the country’s richest men, an investment banker and partner in Fay, Richwhite & Company.
When they crossed the Iran border in June, Thackwray and Richwhite were initially detained and questioned by immigration officers for bringing a sanctioned vehicle into the country – they were driving a Jeep Wrangler, which is covered by Iran’s retaliatory sanctions against the US. In a video captioned “Unexpected meeting request with chief of immigration”, they document getting into the back seat of a different car, and being taken to a meeting.
“We just got out of a 45 minute meeting with the chief of customs at the nearby town … the meeting was about who we were and why we’re coming to Iran with a sanctioned vehicle.” Richwhite said in a subsequent Instagram video. “We’re just waiting to hear the answer really. I’m pretty nervous.” Shortly afterward, Thackwray posts about “getting the green light”.
The following day, the pair recorded going to a police station for further paperwork. Their final post is of an Iranian flag: “Ready for Iran,” the caption says. The Expedition Earth account, as well as Thackwray and Richwhite’s personal accounts, have not posted since. The influencers’ fanbase have become increasingly worried: nearly 600 comments have accumulated under their final post, with most enquiring about their wellbeing or raising concerns for their safety.
Iranian MP and Green party human rights spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said it “came to my attention in early July that something had gone wrong” after hearing from multiple public sources of the pair’s disappearance.
Ghahraman said there were serious questions around whether the matter impeded New Zealand from speaking out more strongly against the Iranian regime’s current crackdowns on protesters, in which human rights groups say almost 12,500 people have been arrested and nearly 250 killed.
Dr Kat Eghdamian, who is an Iran expert and lead adviser to the Human Rights Commission but was speaking in an independent capacity, said Iran had “long used this calculated policy of taking hostages to strong-arm negotiations, particularly with the west.”
On Tuesday, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian academic who spent more than 800 days imprisoned in Iran, had posted a series of tweets about the pair, calling on the government to break its silence and exert public pressure on the Iranian regime.
“I can confirm that the two New Zealand travel bloggers, Topher Richwhite and his wife, Bridget Thackwray, of ‘Expedition Earth’, are missing, believed arrested in Iran,” she said.
Foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta issued a statement on Wednesday morning, saying that “due to the potential for violent civil unrest, the risk of arrest or detention and the volatile security situation in the region, the risk to safety in Iran is significant,” and asking that New Zealand travellers leave the country and do not travel there. She did not mention the couple.
In September, Iran’s ministry of intelligence said nine foreign nationals had been arrested as “agitators” allegedly linked to anti-government demonstrations. It said the detainees included nationals from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. A French couple, Cécile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris, were arrested in May as they prepared to leave Tehran for Paris after a holiday. In June, French national Benjamin Brière was sentenced to eight years in prison on spying charges, for flying a drone near the border. In 2019, two Australian bloggers, Jolie King and Mark Firkin, were released from detention in Iran after being imprisoned for three months on spying charges for allegedly flying a drone to shoot pictures for their travel blog.
A family member did not respond to requests for comment.
This article was amended on 27 October 2022 to make clear that Dr Kat Eghdamian was speaking in an independent capacity.