Mothers of hikers demand Iran release or try their kids
Oakland Tribune
OAKLAND, Calif. — After almost 11 months of pleading, deference and humanitarian appeals, the mothers of three Americans imprisoned in Iran made a sharp change in tone Thursday, issuing a demand that Iran either release their children or put them on trial.
It was at the end of July 2009, when University of California, Berkeley, graduates Sarah Shourd, 31, Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 28, who had been visiting the Kurdistan region of Iraq, were arrested as they traversed a trail that crosses an unmarked, zigzagging stretch of the border with Iran. Since then, their families say, they’ve had no access to their hired Iranian attorney and have not yet seen a courtroom.
The hikers’ mothers, whose contact with their children since the arrest has been limited to a brief phone call each and a truncated, two-day visit to Tehran in May, responded to recent reports that the hikers may finally be put on trial by publicly issuing a list of five demands:
• Either release the trio or put them on trial. Even if the hikers are guilty of entering the country illegally, the mothers said, this does not justify leaving the case unresolved and its defendants untried and imprisoned for almost a year.
• End Shourd’s solitary confinement. Shourd is being held in a dank cell with no window she can see out of, her mother said, and is allowed to visit her companions — Bauer is her fiance — for two 30-minute intervals each day.
• Allow the trio access to their lawyer. The families in December hired an attorney in Iran to represent their children, but he has not yet spoken with or seen his clients, the mothers said.
• Allow the hikers to call home once a week. Shourd and Bauer in particular have reported suffering medical problems in recent months and all the families said they needed to check in on their children’s mental and physical health.
• Grant regular consular access. Because the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with Iran, Swiss consuls have been acting on its behalf, but have been granted access to check on the prisoners’ condition only three times. The mothers said this is a violation of Iran’s obligations under the Vienna Convention.