John Stawpert, marine director of the International Chamber of Shipping, has condemned the US and Iran’s tit-for-tat capture of commercial ships and is calling for the immediate release of their crews, Al Jazeera reports.

Stawpert told Al Jazeera that seafarers must be allowed to go about their business “freely and without persecution”.

“All these people are doing is transporting trade. And really, we can’t have a situation where ships are being seized, ultimately for political ends, to prove a political point,” said Stawpert, whose organisation represents about 80 per cent of the world’s merchant fleet.

“These are innocent farers and they should be allowed to go about their jobs without fear of, essentially, imprisonment.”

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