The mothers of three hikers detained in Iran have held an emotional meeting with their children for the first time in nine months.
Alex Fattal, whose brother Josh was captured in July last year, says it was wonderful news, and hopes Iran will now release the trio. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were detained in July last year after crossing into Iran from Iraq during a hiking expedition. Tehran has accused the trio of having links to US intelligence services but their families insist they made an honest mistake.
After his mother spent two hours with his brother Josh on Thursday, Alex Fattal told RNW this was a positive humanitarian gesture after months of waiting:
“It's been a very long detention, it's been nine and a half months - nearly 300 days - and there's been very limited contact between my brother and his two friends and the outside world. So the fact they could embrace with their mothers and speak with their mothers must be a tremendous support to them. It's a nice humanitarian gesture on the part of the Iranian government and we hope it portends a larger humanitarian gesture, which is a release to the mothers.”
The meeting comes against the backdrop of increasingly fragile US-Iranian relations. Washington moved to extend sanctions against Tehran earlier this week over its failure to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Although the three mothers have so far not secured a meeting with Iranian officials, Alex Fattal says he hopes his brother's case won't be affected by political wrangling:
“We've been saying for nearly 300 days now, and continue to say, that their case is not a political case…. It has nothing to do with politics and we hope it doesn't get caught up in that."
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Of course hiking through from Iraq to Iran is the best thing to do especially in this period..it's a lovely place!
Whatever they say, even if they are innocent, being simple tourists on a hike, the stand of the US against Iranian people and government has brought us to this situation.
The image of the US that they forced onto the Muslim world with heavy artillery is preventing these kids from being free, like a lot more innocent people in Abu-Ghraib, Gunatanamo...or whatever secret prison they have in Eastern Europe...
These poor kids are war casualties, like those Iraqi Reuters journalists zinged by a US helicopter, like in a video game for these brainless soldiers's biggest pleasure...after all WAR is America's second name.
Well, Steve, first you have to read the by-line a little more closely, I'm Canadian, not American! Secondly, Iranian diplomats do not just get their jobs simply by being civilians who pass a series of civil service jobs! I am not personally familiar with the story, nor the summation of it which you provide. By the way, isn't Thailand under curfew and martial law right now? A wounded RNW journalist can vouch for this!! It never helps to throw stones in glass houses or street riots.
Only if Americans had a little civilization like Iranians, their image wouldn't like it is today. US held 5 Iranian diplomats in Iraq for 2 years. The Iraqi government numerously asked US to release the diplomats. They were kept without any reasons given, had no access to a lawyer, no family visits and were tortured on top of that! ANd then we have ignorant, arrogant comments from them like the post before mine.
This is no more than a propaganda exercise by Iran to distract world opinion away from the threat of sanctions against it over nuclear development. If a parent of a suspected spy is allowed to visit he/she in the country of capture, then why not declare that person to be truly innocent and set them free with the sincerest applogies of the offending government? Politics has everything exclusively to do with this matter, and it is amazing that relatives involved should be so naive as to be used as dupes by the Iranians. The US State Dept. should not have allowed the requisite documents for such a trip to Iran.
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