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Freed In Iran: U.S. Hikers Urge Freedom for All Political Prisoners
After more than two years spent in an Iranian prison on allegations of spying and trespassing, American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were released yesterday. After a week of conflicting statements from the Iranian judiciary and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the pair were finally granted bail and handed over to Swiss diplomats. They were taken to Oman where they were joyfully reunited with their families. In a brief press conference in Iran, Bauer said, "Two years in prison is too long and we sincerely hope for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran." President Obama welcomed the news and thanked the leaders of Oman and Iraq, who helped to negotiate the hikers’ release, as well as the Swiss government, whose embassy in Tehran looks after American interests there. Some analysts have speculated that Ahmadinejad wished to project a magnanimous image as he takes to the world stage today in his address to the United Nations General Assembly. In July 2009, Bauer and Fattal were arrested along with Sarah Shourd, while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Bauer is a freelance journalist who has contributed to Democracy Now! and other media outlets. Fattal is an environmental activist. Shourd was released last year. Joining us today is the the American friend who was with them on their vacation in Iraq. Shon Meckfessel says he was not feeling well the morning of the hike, so he stayed behind at their hotel. On the morning of July 31, he set out to join them near a waterfall, when Shane telephoned him to say that they had been detained. Now, more than two years later, his friends have finally been released.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllI like Bauer's reference to "unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran" -- and I hope he repeats it once he's back in the US of A. We'll see.
Some analysts have speculated that Ahmadinejad wished to project a magnanimous image as he takes to the world stage today in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.Did those same analysts speculate that Obama, who has more political prisoners than anyone since Stalin, might have done something about his "magnanimous image" by releasing a few hundred of them?
I just don't feel so sympathetic about these guys. What idiot would be hiking on that boarder with a war going on and a hostile nation on the other side. They have the whole world to take a walk in and they pick that spot. I'll save my sympathy for the millions of Iraqi civilians that have had their lives wasted and/or effected by amerikkka, and for the Troy Davis' family..
True, they're either fools or spies. But if they're fools, it's not a foolishness that merits multi-year prison sentences. I am happy they are free, and they should be grateful that they weren't Iranians captured by the USA as spies!
these guys at a minimum are guilty of illegal imigration.
there are thousands of people, including familes with kids, in US Immigration detention centers(IDC) that have been held for just as long or longer for exactly the same thing: illegally entering a country.
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_big_business_of_family_detention
its too bad that the Swiss and Omani won't help all of the Hatians and central americans in lock-down too. But the US wouldn't let them out on bail, would they?
True, but there's still the question of intent. If they'd committed an act of illegal immigration out of foolishness, then the punishment should be much less severe than if they were spies. The three are free now? Fine. Sovereign states tend to take such matters awfully seriously, perhaps more seriously than they should, but who are Americans to judge? Which brings me to the rest of your comment: that's pretty much my point: We're much more cruel than the Iranians when the shoe is on the other foot.
You could have found out the reasons they gave for hiking there. It would have taken you less time to do so, compared to making your lazy ignorant post.
At least most of us know what they said. This doesn't mean, however, that we'll ever know whether they were telling the truth.
Spies usually are able to supply good reasons for being where they are and why, on the unfortunate contigency that they might get caught.
I don't necessarily believe these three were spies; they could just as easily have been unwitting agents of the CIA. It could be a simple matter of a casual friend suggesting to you visit a beautiful area to hike in...in a rather unlikely place. This friend, unknown to you, could have an ulterior motive for sending you there. Your friend (or your friend's friends in intelligence) may simply want to see if, when, and how the alarms go off once three "hikers" are found wandering near the border of a country that normally wouldn't be that easy to enter.
Then again, these three innocent "hikers" may have agreed to undergo their missio--that is--"recreation" for a handsome fee, paid by the interested intelligence agencies.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the amount they had to pay in bail to get released was exactly equivalent to the amount they received for agreeing to take that lovely hike in the hills? I'd say both ironic and amusing.
Enjoy your debriefing, gentlemen. Likewise, US intelligence, enjoy unraveling the inconsistencies between their stories and those you obtained from your earlier debriefing of Ms. Shourd.
Hopefully, all you wanted was to test the border guard's reaction time. I don't think you're going to learn anything else useful.
But...you never know, do you? :)
"Bauer is a freelance journalist who has contributed to Democracy Now! and other media outlets."
Thus explaining "Democracy Now!"'s refusal to look further into some very simple, easy-to-answer questions about this story.
They didn't. Most everyone keeps repeating the first stories that perhaps they strayed across the border by mistake. In the immediate confusion I'm sure they thought so as well. However, a few weeks after they were taken witnesses were found who could substantiate that the Iranians came over the border to seize them. The location where they were taken was located and it was not inside Iran. The Iranian guards either made the mistake of location or deliberately went after someone close to their border.
Those witnesses (with or without irony quotes) appeared a year later, at which point nothing could be "substantiated." Not that anything can be substantiated in a classic he-said-she-said case like this one; the best one can hope for is a thorough and impartial investigation of the motives of everyone on all sides. Like that will happen!
"freedom for all political prisoners" I wonder how they feel about Bradley Manning.
A fun adventure on the Iranian border!!?? I think I'll take the kids to Gaza for a fun weekend. Alas.
If their names had been Mahmud and Kumar; black Muslim or Asian American instead of Josh and Shane they would have been rounded up by the US occupation forces the moment they landed in Iraq and consigned to the black hole of Guantanamo never to be heard from again. Everybody knows that blacks and Asians do not go to foreign counties for hiking adventure.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has now publicy affirmed the release of Fattal and Bauer was in response to requests made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, along with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of state of Iraq and Oman.
To read the rest of this story go to http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6512
Yes, all political prisoners should be released and the Iranian state is a theocratic dictatorship. That however does not obscure the fundamental American arrogance that drives (some) Americans to loiter in places they should not, unless it is driven by ignorance or stupidity or desire to provoke or are paid to undertake; compare this to the thousands of official and non-official gun-men in the southern border to stop such intrusions! Why otherwise anyone go anywhere near the border of Iran or North Korea? And the frequency with which US citizens seem to get themselves into this kind of situation gives rest of the world ample reason to doubt their innocence.
Even in Mexico the US has its military and policing agents running around everywhere INSIDE Mexico and pretending to be just innocent nobodies, let alone Iran and Northern Iraq. We should all be very sceptical when the excuses begin to fly.
Those two guys true stories need to be told!
What's needed is a big movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow who brought you such a patriotic movie of "The Hurt Locker" in 2008.
Then we can witness these brave souls exploits, endeavours, hardships, love and final triumph as they walk out as free men, just as free as any man is.
Yes, a movie is needed or else everyone won't be able to figure it all out in the truthful way it's supposed to.
And in any case, we can't have any feel-good movie like Avatar 2 getting in the way of things so this movie could be an Academy Award winner trumper!.
Hear your freedom, now in Dolby Digital!
So are they going to free Bradley Manning? I don't think so AmeriKKKa is the Right Wing Neo Fasisct Capital of the world...