Alex
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Posts by Alex
Alex Fattal Testifies for Josh
Feb 4th
Alex gives Dakota, who Josh used to babysit, a piggyback ride at Aprovecho. Josh worked at Aprovecho from 2005-2008
I am overwhelmed with Josh’s presence and absence as I write from the cabin where Josh used to live here at Aprovecho. I look out to the garden, new building, and tilapia farm and it almost feels like he is by my side. Hiking through the fir forest of the property I remember when he took my hand three winters ago as we walked along the path he restored. We climbed to the top of the property talking about the summers we spent as boys at camp in New Hampshire, our quirky parents, our love interests, and our futures.
Josh would glow if he were free to see Aprovecho getting ready to bloom and bursting with new sustainable living projects. The vision he had for the land and the community is becoming a reality. I can only hope that the visions I have every night, of greeting Josh at the bottom of an airplane and giving him a big hug, and playing basketball in our driveway, are also becoming a reality. The fruits of Josh’s labor and his love for the Willamette Valley are powerful testimony to his uniquely amazing character. His spirit is here and hopefully he will be too, very soon.
Alex Fattal, Josh’s brother
AN OUTRAGEOUS INJUSTICE & CALL TO ACTION
Jul 13th
REPUBLISHED FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST:
Posted: July 12, 2010 03:42 PM
By Alex Fattal
Today is day 346. Iran, enough is enough! Making my brother Josh and his two friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd suffer in Evin Prison for nearly a year is wrong and needs to end.
To underscore this point, we are calling on friends, supporters and everyone who is outraged that my brother and friends remain imprisoned for no legitimate reason to protest by organizing events throughout the US and the world for a weekend of action starting on July 30th.
Update on the Hikers’ Case
The last public comment from an Iranian official about the hikers case was on June 11 by Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior member of the judiciary and head of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights. Below are a few quotes from that statement:
“The issue of detainees should be pursued on the humanitarian level and not be muddled with other issues.”
“I think [a trial] should not be very far from now.”
Javad Larijani made similar statements on February 15th, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mottaki made similar statements in early January and President Ahmadinejad made similar statements last September. We continue to wait for some sign that their case is indeed coming to a conclusion and that these promises are not totally empty.
Josh, Shane and Sarah have not been able to see their lawyer, Masoud Shafii, and have had no contact with the outside world since their mothers’ visit in late May, a visit that was inexplicably cut from seven days to two (and this one hour before they departed for Tehran and after waiting for over five months for one-week visas).
Clearly the excuse of an ongoing “investigation” and the repeated reassurance that their case is being treated within a legal framework is an excuse for the fact that Iran is treating my brother and his friends as bargaining chips. If Iran had the thinnest thread of evidence it surely would have publicized it extensively by now. When the mothers were in Iran, Josh, Shane and Sarah told them that they hadn’t been interrogated since early December, when Josh and Shane were finally placed in the same cell and the conditions of their detention eased a bit. However, Sarah still sits in solitary confinement and is only able to see Shane and Josh for brief periods. This extreme isolation risks inflicting lasting damage to her emotional and psychological well being. Her medical records have not been made available to her family, raising fears that the medical tests contain troubling information about her gynecological condition.
All of this for what? The Nation magazine recently reported that my brother and friends were not even on Iranian territory when they were detained. While this report is unsubstantiated, it highlights the fact that the charge of illegal entry still needs to be proven in a free and fair court of law.
From the hikers’ lawyer, Masoud Shafii, I understand that according to Iranian law the investigation period needs to end within four months; obviously, that has not happened. Mr. Shafii informed our families that another Iranian law stipulates that prisoners who have spent the minimum sentence in jail without seeing a judge must be freed immediately. The minimum jail sentence for illegal entry is one year, although the standard punishment is a $50-$300 fine. If Josh, Shane and Sarah are held beyond a year without any semblance of justice their detention will reach a new level of illegality, a new level of immorality, a new level of inhumanity.
A year ago, as I skipped stones into the Baltic Sea with my brother (he was visiting me in Sweden) he shared with me his plans for the future. He was leaning toward going on to graduate studies, not going on to languish in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.
Josh, Shane and Sarah are talented and caring individuals who have worked to improve our world by advocating for social and environmental justice. They need to get back to their lives, get back to bringing joy to our families and their friends, get back to their noble pursuits.
So far Iranian authorities have been deaf to humanitarian appeals from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Ela Gandhi, Mairead Maguire, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Noam Chomsky and many others. They need to hear from all of us together. Join the mobilization to tell Iran that enough is enough on the one-year anniversary of the hikers’ detention. Flagrantly playing politics with the lives of innocents is unacceptable. Iran, let them go now!
How You Can Take Action:
- Join the hikers’ mothers, human rights activists, friends and supporters in a protest outside of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations (40th St. and Third Ave.) in New York on July 30 between 12:30 and 2pm
- Attend a protest event on July 31 that is already being planned in Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Duluth, MN, Washington, DC; Boulder, CO; Lunenburg, MA; Birmingham, AL; Elk Grove, CA; Seattle, WA; Cottage Grove, OR; Frankfurt, Germany; Paris, France; Marbella, Spain; New Delhi, India; Vancouver Island, Canada; Vancouver, Canada; Toronto, Canada
- Organize a protest event wherever you are and contact Farah Mawani to let us know about it: farah@freethehikers.org
- Wear a white ribbon or other Free the Hikers gear to spread the word that their unjust and illegal detention needs to end
- Join our Facebook group and invite all of your friends to do the same
- Write to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials, calling for the hikers’ release
FREEDOM DAY ON THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER WITH & WITHOUT JOSH
May 29th
May 27, 2010
Dear Josh,
I love you and I miss you! As you know, today is day 300 of your detention and we have designated it Freedom Day. People from all over the world are sending in their reflections and appreciations about their own freedom so that you can feel those freedoms vicariously. Here’s mine, a reflection from yesterday:
It’s 92 degrees in Philadelphia and it’s my good fortune to find myself by the Schuykill River. Placing non-essential clothes on a plank at the water’s edge I dip my first foot, recently relieved by the bounds of laces too tightly tied, into the river. The hairs atop my foot float up, the gravelly sand compresses below my foot and tadpoles wiggle away. It feels good and I cautiously place my next foot in and gradually wade to the middle of the river.
I look downstream and a white bicycle helmet zips across the small stone bridge that has been connecting the two sides of the river for eighty-six years. I look upstream in disbelief that I am in the heart of Philadelphia. My heart beats with brotherly love imagining that you have already run into the river and are swimming upstream taking in the pleasure of being fully submerged in the cool water, not worrying about what chemicals the foam circles floating along the surface might carry or the discomfort of drying.
Swimming in the Schuykill River
I stand with the image of you swimming upstream in my mind as the water passes through my legs. After five minutes of basking in the daydream I dive in and chase you upstream. But the moment I am submerged you are gone. I am alone in the water feeling a freedom you can only feel when in another medium entirely. It’s a dreamy freedom. I slow from a frantic crawl-stroke to the breast-stroke, the gradual stroke that grandpa has perfected. My eyes are just above the water’s surface and the leafy riverbanks’ reflections ripple away from me, blurry images of trees elongating, slinking and snapping into other shapes. Without opening my mouth I ask myself, “Do you see that Josh?”
My thoughts flit to Brazil, to Dico’s house. I flip onto my back and take on a leisurely back-stroke as I think ‘this is not Brazil.’ The trees are temperate, it’s Philly, which continues to strike me as the most unbelievable part of the moment: I am in Philadelphia, it’s beautiful and I feel free; three thoughts I have never so closely connected before. But the freedom is only partial since I know you are somewhere up river. You are here and not here. I know I am swimming for you, exploring for you, feeling the gentle massage of the current for you. In the meantime you are left to look forward to limited allotments of time in the ceilingless room in Evin Prison and are praying for a storm so you can feel connected to the outside world through the weather and try to catch raindrops in your mouth.
My computer is in the car but my iphone is on the bank, the campaign awaits. I should get going. I stop my swim to put my feet down, turn and face the bridge. An eddy is pushing water against my back and I think of Dad saying, “a million dollars,” us looking at each other and cracking up. A smile comes across my face. You are here and not here, but most importantly you will be here. I swim back letting the river carry me.
Hang in there!
Love,
Alex
FREEDOM DAY by Alex Fattal
May 28th
May 27, 2010
Dear Josh,
I love you and I miss you! As you know, today is day 300 of your detention and we have designated it Freedom Day. People from all over the world are sending in their reflections and appreciations about their own freedom so that you can feel those freedoms vicariously.
Here’s mine, a reflection from yesterday:
It’s 92 degrees in Philadelphia and it’s my good fortune to find myself by the Schuykill River. Placing non-essential clothes on a plank at the water’s edge I dip my first foot, recently relieved by the bounds of laces too tightly tied, into the river. The hairs atop my foot float up, the gravelly sand compresses below my foot and tadpoles wiggle away. It feels good and I cautiously place my next foot in and gradually wade to the middle of the river.
I look downstream and a white bicycle helmet zips across the small stone bridge that has been connecting the two sides of the river for eighty-six years. I look upstream in disbelief that I am in the heart of Philadelphia. My heart beats with brotherly love imagining that you have already run into the river and are swimming upstream taking in the pleasure of being fully submerged in the cool water, not worrying about what chemicals the foam circles floating along the surface might carry or the discomfort of drying.
Swimming in the Schuykill River
I stand with the image of you swimming upstream in my mind as the water passes through my legs. After five minutes of basking in the daydream I dive in and chase you upstream. But the moment I am submerged you are gone. I am alone in the water feeling a freedom you can only feel when in another medium entirely. It’s a dreamy freedom. I slow from a frantic crawl-stroke to the breast-stroke, the gradual stroke that grandpa has perfected. My eyes are just above the water’s surface and the leafy riverbanks’ reflections ripple away from me, blurry images of trees elongating, slinking and snapping into other shapes. Without opening my mouth I ask myself, “Do you see that Josh?”
My thoughts flit to Brazil, to Dico’s house. I flip onto my back and take on a leisurely back-stroke as I think ‘this is not Brazil.’ The trees are temperate, it’s Philly, which continues to strike me as the most unbelievable part of the moment: I am in Philadelphia, it’s beautiful and I feel free; three thoughts I have never so closely connected before. But the freedom is only partial since I know you are somewhere up river. You are here and not here. I know I am swimming for you, exploring for you, feeling the gentle massage of the current for you. In the meantime you are left to look forward to limited allotments of time in the ceilingless room in Evin Prison and are praying for a storm so you can feel connected to the outside world through the weather and try to catch raindrops in your mouth.
My computer is in the car but my iphone is on the bank, the campaign awaits. I should get going. I stop my swim to put my feet down, turn and face the bridge. An eddy is pushing water against my back and I think of Dad saying, “a million dollars,” us looking at each other and cracking up. A smile comes across my face. You are here and not here, but most importantly you will be here. I swim back letting the river carry me.
Hang in there!
Love, Alex
YES, THEY ARE STILL THERE!
Apr 12th
Yesterday was a gorgeous day in Prospect Park with Josh, Shane and Sarah’s amazing friends and supporters spreading the word about their ongoing. People were coming to us to ask for flyers and were eager to hear what is going on with SSJ. One question that came up quite a few times throughout the day was, ‘are they still there?’ Many people thought they had been released already. I wish!!!!!!!!!
On a sunny Sunday in Brooklyn with families out picnicking it is easy to forget the world is not as topsy turvy as it is. It is easy to forget that wrong is continually justified as right and that politics eclipse personal and human concerns. Maybe it was just all the bloom of spring that had everyone thinking that the hikers were now free to lounge with people they love. Or maybe it’s that they assumed that the hikers so blatantly pose no threat to Iran that they must have released them. But unfortunately the freedom of my brother and his friends continues to be unjustly denied. Neither the spring sun nor the logic has seemed to make a difference.
Thanks to everyone who came out and reminded the lovely Brooklynites we met that yes, they are STILL there! Hopefully, some of those people will now go out into their communities and do something to contribute to the efforts to bring them home soon. For those who need ideas, check out the Take Action section of www.freethehikers.org.
