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Iran to Free American Sarah Shourd
TEHRAN - Iran will soon free Sarah Shourd, one of three US hikers the Islamic republic detained more than a year ago, an Iranian diplomat announced on Thursday.
Iran said it will free a detained American on Saturday, raising hopes that the Islamic republic will soon release all three US hikers it has held for more than a year. (AFP) "I would like to confirm that Iran will be releasing Sarah Shourd very soon," Bak Sahraei, the second counsellor to the Iranian mission, said in a statement sent to AFP.
Previously, Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance said "one of the Americans" would be freed at 9:00 am (0430 GMT) on Saturday at Hotel Esteghlal in Tehran, without identifying the detainee.
A ministry official said the release ceremony would be overseen by one of the vice presidents of Iran, but the statements did not elaborate about the reasons for the decision.
Shourd, 31, was arrested along with fellow US hikers Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27 on July 31, 2009 after straying across the border from neighbouring Iraq.
Her mother Nora told AFP last month that Sarah was being held in solitary confinement despite suffering from a pre-cancerous cervical condition, a lump in her breast and depression.
A release on Saturday would coincide with the end of Ramadan and the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
It also comes with Tehran under mounting international pressure over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two sentenced to death by stoning by an Iranian court for adultery.
The mothers of the three hikers, who Iran accuses of spying and entering the country illegally, earlier voiced hope that Thursday's reports that one of them would be released signalled the end to their battle for freedom.
"We have seen the news reports and are urgently seeking further information," their mothers said in a joint statement.
"We hope and pray that the reports are true and that this signals the end of all three of our children's long and difficult detention," said the statement signed by Cindy Hickey, Nora Shourd and Laura Fattal.
"Shane, Sarah and Josh are all innocent and we continue to call for their immediate release, so that they can return home together and be reunited with our families."
The United States reiterated its call for arch-foe Iran to free all three hikers.
The White House said it was checking the veracity of reports on the planned release with the Swiss government, which has represented US interests in Iran since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"These are three innocent children, innocent kids who committed no crime, all three of whom should be released and released immediately by the Iranian government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Iranian authorities arrested Bauer, Shourd and Fattal on July 31, 2009.
The three insist they entered the Islamic republic by mistake after getting lost during a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Several top US officials, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Nobel Prize winners and international rights groups have repeatedly urged Iran to release the hikers.
Last month, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said an investigation on the American detainees was nearing completion.
"The investigation into these three persons is close to being completed and when completed the results will be announced," Moslehi said.
Nora Shourd said last month that she had received an unexpected call from her daughter complaining she had been denied medical care for five months.
She said Sarah's case amounted to psychological torture. In May, Iran had allowed the mothers of the trio to visit them.
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of their arrest, Obama had issued a plea for their immediate release, saying they had never worked for the US government and committed "absolutely no crime."
Iran and Western powers, led by the United States, are at loggerheads over Tehran's nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran is masking a weapons drive under the guise of what Tehran says is a civilian atomic programme.
International rights group Amnesty International also urged the trio's release in May, saying it appeared that the Iranian authorities did not have substantial grounds to prosecute them.
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37 Comments so far
Show AllMy thought is: what in the f$%ck are these spoiled and coddled American 'kids' doing in a frigging War Zone 'hiking'? Give me a break. Let alone along the border of a Country considered by My Government (not by me) to be so hostile to US 'interests' that we don't even have Diplomatic relations with them - no Embassy, no Consulate, nada.
Stupidity knows no bounds, it seems. Didn't they learn anything in school? I guess we know the answer to that.
"Didn't they learn anything in school?"
Apparently they skipped class the day they were teaching how to avoid capture in CIA training school.
Consider that maybe, instead, they skipped school the day they were teaching the evils of the Iranian government.
So they were idealistic enough to believe that the Iranians weren't bad enough to walk over the border and snatch them.
And in world peace and all the rest of that liberal stuff.
Idealistic or not, a reasonable person (even an avid hiker)would probably avoid an area that is within spitting distance of the border of a country which has a big time beef with us.
They were most likely NOT deliberate in crossing into Iran but that doesn't absolve them from being fools.
Even if Iranian border guards entered Iraq and took them it's not like we have the moral authority to condemn it. Wasn't it the US that illegally entered an Iranian consular mission and kidnapped several diplomats?
Turn about is fair play indeed.
Bring them home safe but let's cut the boo-hooing.
Coddled and spoiled?? What judgment! You don't know a thing about them. If you did, you wouldn't say such garbage. Learn something about individuals before you spout off about them.
They have been involved in a number of progressive causes, including Palestinian rights. Maybe what they learned at school was to use their privilege from an American education to try to help heal the world.
It seems to me, it is your comment that reflects stupidity and a lack of education.
Are you as upset about the 4 American soldiers cutting off body parts for trophy pieces. Are you ranting over on that board? Do you honestly think this is the equivalent?
Get real. I think your anger, with these 3 young adults who have pursued worthy enough goals, is seriously misplaced.
"They have been involved in a number of progressive causes, including Palestinian rights."
Given what they were caught doing, they were probably associating with those "progressive causes" as infiltrators and spies, which happens all the time, especially in matters of Palestinian rights.
And what evidence do you have to suggest this??
Bring America Back !!!!
***godspeed brave hikers, next time take along your gps.
---we were just about ready to send Jimmy Carter after
you guys, because Obama was away on vacation.
***oh, just ignore that post below where vici hides
behind the wizards curtain pretending iran is a war zone,
Not...
pres carter had his bags packed.
Reagan, Nixon, Bush I and II were all better than Carter?
The US ICE has thousands of Mexicans, Caribeans interned in imigration detention centers across the country. many have been locked up for over a year. many are detained for illegally crossing the border.
http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/immigrant-detention
Mosaad...
More Sad
Yep, if three Iranian hikers were found in an area along the US-Mexico border.........
Gitmo, torture, waterboarding, no communications to the outside world, disappeared - these things come to mind.
Three Americans hiking on the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009......
stupidity, thoughtlessness, arrogance, up-to-no-good - these things comes to mind.
Excellent comment, thank you.
Seeing as we have 12-20 million people here from assorted nations, without documents, your comment doesn't entirely fly.
Though I, too, think Guantanamo should be closed, etc.
Dude, if the US government found some Arab/Muslim/Farsi people hanging around an obscure border, they would be tortured until they fessed-up to being a friend to someone like you. Give me a break.......
"These are three innocent children, innocent kids who committed no crime, all three of whom should be released and released immediately by the Iranian government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said."
Sure sure Mr. Gibbs. Then the question becomes: Who DID commit the crime(s) that inspired radicalization of the Iranian government? It could be the petro-imperialists of the "west", the USA in particular with its 1953 Iranian coup. How about the USA's fueling of Saddam Hussein's imperial war on Iran?
Gibbs can't answer the question because he would lose his imperial job! Gibbs only commented on the case because it serves imperial ends. He's exploiting the captured USans, in a similar way USan elites exploit soldiers, and the entire citizenry, in various contexts. You can avoid supporting elite monsters! Look at your various market/civic options.
"TEHRAN - Iran will soon free Sarah Shourd, one of three US hikers"
---------------------*
That's all I read, before I realized that this article is designed to bbullshit me. Sure, they were hikers. They got picked up right after crossing a bridge. The bridge is mine, and I'd like to sell it to you.
One of those people, Josh Fattal, is well known to me and many folks here in Cottage Grove Oregon.
Like the woman who stands the risk of being stoned, much is done as a way to thumb the nose at the USA.
Partially it is because people feel helpless to defy the US, and partially is is because National Governments are amoral reptiles and use human lives, their own citizens as well, to play power politics in global financially driven wrestling matches.
We ordinary people are nameless and invisible and voiceless until we are useful as pawns.
Then we have everything but a voice.
The fact that you know one of them has no significance. Many people know G W Bush. Many people knew Hitler.
Within days of the incident, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz cast doubt about the "hiking" bullshit story:
"However, two days ago, when the Kurds gave Iran details regarding the three, things got complicated. An Iranian television channel reported that the three were not backpackers, but rather "Jewish reporters", and even called one of them an "extreme Zionist."
Bauer, a California resident, reportedly writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, The Nation and New American Media. Shourd, Bauer's partner, writes for the Website Matador."
Here is the article: http://www.haaretz.com/news/3-americans-arrested-in-iran-extreme-zionists-or-backpackers-1.281383
Those idiots were there to infiltrate, collect info and come back home and report them and be heroes for the Zionist cause. There is a name for that: It is called "spying", and no country tolerates it.
Josh Fattal is into permaculture, peace, social equity, community, environmental restoration and preservation, universal love -- you know, all those things that you guys are supposedly into, but are apparently not.
There are plenty of rabid Zionists in Israel who are into environmentalism, gay rights, organic farming and "alternative lifestyles." Hypocrisy apparently knows no bounds. The story that those three were simply hiking doesn't wash.
Sure, but these people aren't Zionists and aren't rabid. What do you know about them to make you think they are?
What doesn't wash about them simply hiking? They were in North Kurdistan, visiting a popular waterfall. Their friend, who was with them on the trip, but didn't join them on that hike, contends that the Iranians are the ones who crossed the border to capture them. Sounds reasonable to me.
"collect info and come back home and report them and be heroes for the Zionist cause. "
When has this happened before? Name one. Name one American Spy who infiltrated a foreign country and returned to a Hero's welcome.
I can't recall any American Spies being given ticker-tape parades.
The Sins of the USA are in plain sight: Predator Drones, buying Politicians in other countries and outright economic sabotage and "wars of preemption". And a significant minority of the US Senators and Representatives ARE in the pocket of the Israel Lobby.
There are real spies out there for all sides.
But those kids are just what they seem - tools of cynical ruling elites. And knowing one of them has some real significance to me. It brings home the fact that the horrors that happen over there and to others can happen to anyone and anywhere.
They are not kids, first off, they are fully adults. They are activists and have journalism experience, why are people bashing them? Iraq is war torn, and the governments of Iran and US are in some sort of cold war, thanks to US domineering, but that doesn't mean that people don't live, work, commute, celebrate occasions, hike or bike, or whatever. It's a big place. We americans have very strange ideas about the world we dominate. and you posters are ridiculous, and I don't see any of the familiar names that post many intelligent and well researched comments.
Sarah's release on Saturday will be a great relief for her, the two other captives, and all her friends and family. She has borne her detention with grace and conviction, despite her illnesses and despite you idiotic posters cynical hateful views.
We do the same thing here in America, we detain young men from Iran and other middle-eastern/islamic countries, for donating to islamic charities, knowing people who are involved with islamic activist groups, etc. Those men are not stupid, and they are rarely "terrorists" or spies.
The white house is the voice that keeps repeating the stupid message "kids, hiking, just got lost..." They were travelers, world citizens, not zionist kids spying while getting lost on a trail on the border of, OMG! IRAN!!!! The are human beings seeing the world and they made a mistake that was apparently easy to make in a natural region of the beautiful land between Iraq and Iran.
I send blessings to them, and look forward to hearing more about their experiences. They are a strong crew, and could teach some of us here a few things about holding it together in hard situations.
They all seem like very nice young adults to me. I understand they've been involved in a number of progressive causes, with their writing, including Palestinian rights.
I hope we see them all home soon.
http://www.infowars.com/zionist-lobby-paid-off-u-s-journalists-to-sell-israeli-foreign-policy/
Newly declassified documents highlighting how the Israeli lobby routinely paid off journalists in the U.S. corporate media to write pro-Zionist propaganda in support of Israeli aggression against Palestine and Iran during the 60’s have taken on new significance after the Atlantic Monthly, which is named in the documents as being complicit in the bribing scandal, recently published a cover story hyping the necessity and inevitability of an Israeli attack on Iran.
“Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010. The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel’s clandestine programs for “cultivation of editors,” the “stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines” as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility,” reports the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.
Don't they look like angels, those "kids"? These innocent children wondered from their backyard on the Iraq/Iran border into the evil Iranian territory. Let's bomb the evil Iranians for picking these innocent angels up on false charges that they violated Iranian immigration laws. How dare the Iranians arrest these little angels with no justification?
Sheep along! Sheep along!
I don't think they crossed the border. I think the Iranian guards did. Amnesty International has been involved in that investigation and there were a number of Iraqi civilian reports.
"These are three innocent children, innocent kids who committed no crime, all three of whom should be released and released immediately by the Iranian government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Two of these "innocent kids" are 27 years old, and the other is 31 years old. "Children"?
So what about Omar Khadr, who was captured in 2002 at age 15 for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed an invading U.S. soldier, and has been held in Guantanamo ever since? Khadr's life has been a living hell of torture and separation from his family for eight years and counting; he's only 23 years old now, much younger than the "three innocent children" Gibbs is so concerned about.
What about all the Palestinian children held in Israeli jails in order to terrorize their parents?
Gibbs and the flim-flam artist he represents make me sick.
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I'm glad to hear this young woman is being released.
I hope we hear about the two young men coming home soon, as well.
Hikers? my ass...just way to similar to that that wack-job right-wing "Christian nut case from Utah, who was magically able to get 7 travel visa to Pakistan in one year to ostensibly "hunt down Bin-Laden"? Well, he too, like these "hikers" were caught crossing into the territory of the respective countries and detained.
It is not easy to even get a travel visa to Cuba let alone Pakistan or any of the countries bordering Iran, unless of course you have special, say we say "privileges" courtesy of the US war machine.
Exactly, hamster.
How about we trade Sarah Palin for Sarah Shourd? Nah, that might provoke a hostile response. And I have thought all along that these were CIA operatives (or dupes), and laugh out loud at the idea these were 'good christians looking to evangelize the heathens'.
Sarah Shourd is ill. Let her come home and get the medical care she needs. Lots of speculation here about who she and the others are but nothing is really known yet.