300 DAYS
311 DAYS WITHOUT FREEDOM
Jun 8th
When Shane, Sarah and Josh requested that we celebrate our freedom for them to mark 300 days of their detainment, I so wanted to honour it. It was the first time in 300 days that we had a direct request from them. The first time we were able to mark their detainment in a way that we knew they wanted. The first time we could communicate a request from them to the world.
And what they wanted communicates to the world just what kind of people they are. Even after more than 300 days of separation from their loved ones and almost total isolation from the world, they want others to live the freedom they don’t have. I’ve certainly been more acutely aware of my freedom than ever before since their capture and detainment on July 31, 2009. At the same time, it has been impossible to feel free and it will continue to be until they are all free.
The loss of freedom I notice the most is my inability to communicate directly with Josh, someone I was with for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 months just weeks before his capture. Someone I talked to face to face every day, multiple times a day for 4 months, and then kept in touch with by email, online chatting and facebook up until 2 days before his capture. Now not only can I not communicate with him in any of these ways that we all take for granted, but he can’t communicate with anyone other than Sarah and Shane. He can’t call anyone, not even his mother, father or brother. He can’t email, text, tweet, chat with, or facebook message anyone. Letters sent to him are screened and he doesn’t receive them all. He has only had one opportunity, through his mother’s recent visit, to hear what is being done to fight for his freedom. He has not yet had one opportunity to meet with his lawyer. He can not plea for his own freedom, tell his story, ask for, or what I imagine is even more difficult for him, give support. So I do it for him. Face to face and by email, text message, online chat, twitter and facebook. Every day, multiple times a day, with as many people as I can.
VIDEO MESSAGE: I MISS YOU SARAH, SHANE & JOSH
Jun 1st
This is a video message to Sarah, Shane and Josh, as they pass the 300 day mark of their detention in Iran.
BRING THEM HOME
May 31st
FREE JOSH FATTAL, FREE THEM ALL
By Tao Orion
REPUBLISHED FROM THE EUGENE WEEKLY, 27 MAY 2010:
Josh Fattal
Josh Fattal is an avid hiker. During the years that we lived together at Aprovecho, Josh thoroughly explored the rolling hills of clear-cuts and Douglas fir plantations that comprise our backyard. One day, I remember looking up from my work in the garden to see his smiling face and dancing eyes, relating a tale of walking all the way to Saginaw on forest roads. Another day, determined to find a path from Aprovecho to Cottage Grove that does not intercept the paved road, he walked into town and back on the dirt roads that crisscross the forest between our property and town. Josh also spent the last winter he lived at Aprovecho expanding and improving the trail network on our property, creating new paths to formerly under-appreciated areas. Every time I walk the trails, I think of Josh, his creativity and his love and wonder for the world.
Josh is an articulate and principled member of our community. Josh led numerous groups of interns through Aprovecho’s Sustainable Living Skills Internship Program during the three years that he lived and worked at Aprovecho. He planned hiking and biking trips for the interns and encouraged them to engage in our local area by helping on farms and participating in community events. In Aprovecho’s business and organizational structure, Josh was a strong voice for staying true to our consensus process, working hard to find ways that everyone’s voice could be heard while still making progress and not spending all of our time in meetings.
Josh is a thoughtful and passionate citizen. Just before Josh left for his work as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program, he helped create Aprovecho’s 100 Mile Diet Internship. Josh felt strongly that as a sustainable living education center, Aprovecho should endeavor to source its food needs locally and demonstrate our region’s potential for locally based economics. He believed that by focusing our organizational purchasing power into our local community, we could contribute to the creation of a more just, equitable and sustainable world.
Josh is in prison in Iran. I try to imagine what life is like for Josh at this moment, where he sits in Evin Prison in Tehran, with his friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd. I imagine him practicing tai chi, doing the poses that he practiced every Tuesday and Thursday morning in Coiner Park in Cottage Grove. I imagine that he is trying his best to keep centered, to keep healthy, as the days of his imprisonment continue to add up.
Josh, Shane and Sarah were taken into Iranian custody on July 31, 2009, during a hiking trip to Kurdistan, an autonomous and peaceful region of Iraq. As of the date I write this article, the hikers have been held without charge, without access to a lawyer and with extremely limited contact with the outside world. The Swiss diplomats who represent America’s diplomatic interests in Iran have visited with the hikers three times. Their most recent visit brought news of poor physical and deteriorating mental health.
Josh is a friend of many in the Cottage Grove community, and he is known and loved by people all over the world. We hope every day for the safe and speedy return of Josh, Shane and Sarah. They have been held for far too long, and we long to see their smiling faces again, to be inspired by them again, and to welcome them back to where they make their homes so they may continue to be appreciated as the kind, intelligent and passionate people they are. Please visit www.freethehikers.org to learn how you can help bring them home as soon as possible.
BEING LOST ISN’T A CRIME—BY @TheRiverWanders
May 31st
| Freedom can mean different things to different people and my nom de plume, The River Wanders, is closely connected to my interpretation of the concept. Rivers use the power of gravity to wander: pooling into wide expanses, twisting into slow curves, or carving deep chasms through solid rock. My life is like a river powered with the energy of my interests and abundant opportunity; combined, they create new adventures for me to experience. Wandering is a luxury that symbolizes movement based on curiosity, appreciation, and joie de vivre. However, a coherent life is more than wandering and freedom is more than the absence of restraint. What, then, makes us free? Freedom is, at its most basic level, the ability to act with independence based upon informed choice. To make an informed choice, we first need to be aware of something in order to gather information about it. Next, we analyze that information to determine what kind of experience we wish to have, and lastly, we act on that analysis. Our collective choices carve out our uniqueness as individuals and if society denies us our liberty—justly or unjustly—our inherent sense of self erodes. We are diminished. |  Wandering River If I’m not aware of a boundary, I’ve made no specific decision to cross it, I’ve committed no crime. I am lost. Nothing more insidious than that. Being lost isn’t a crime. |
| These aspects of freedom relate directly to Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal in two key ways. First, society expects us to behave within certain limits; we have laws, boundaries, and expectations imposed upon us to maintain order and safety. We must first be aware of those limitations in order to analyze them and act accordingly. Sarah, Shane, and Josh were not aware of the border they may have crossed and therefore did not have the necessary information to analyze their situation and take appropriate action. They did not exercise choice or free will: Sarah, Shane, and Josh wandered and got lost. Second, with respect to society’s response to their wandering—stripping Sarah, Shane and Josh of their liberty, their dignity and their humanity—is indeed a harsh punishment for an accident in which no harm was meant and no harm was done. Being lost isn’t a crime. | |
FREEDOM FOR SHANE, JOSH & SARAH—BY @QUIMBANDA
May 31st
SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2010
Since late last year, at the invitation of Deepak Chopra, on Twitter (@DeepakChopra), I have followed the online campaign to release the three US hikers, held for 300 days in Iran. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009. They were young people walking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan when they accidentally crossed the unmarked border with Iran. They were in a peaceful part of Iraq that is increasingly popular among Western tourists.
The three Americans are friends, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. They are being held in Evin prison in Tehran; no one knows for sure why, after all no charge against them has been presented in a court of law. These young people have only been able to contact their families once.Shane, Josh and Sarah are friends of the planet, they’ve been in several different countries and according to testimony from friends and relatives are people who admire and respect all cultures and religions. They have never before illegally entered or violated rules in any country they have visited.
We hope the Iranian authorities will understand and accept the truth that Shane, Sarah and Josh were in Iranian territory, where unfortunately they got lost and ended up crossing the border with Iran. Their friends and relatives are agonizing, and people from all over have been touched by this sad story. Please let the hikers return home as soon as possible.
You friend, Brazilian friend, may also help these young people who are people like us. As everyone knows today Brazil has excellent diplomatic relationship with Iran, our president is a friend of the Iranian president. Let’s fill up the online petition to free them quickly. Who knows, when the Iranians see the signatures of hundreds or thousands of Brazilians, seeking freedom for Shane, Josh and Sarah they might accept that these young people have been unjustly arrested.
Sign the petition: http://freethehikers.org. Don’t fail! Today we live in a global village, which must be without prejudice, injustice, authoritarianism and boundaries for the truth. There is one God and we are all brothers!
Follow me on Twitter: @Quimbanda
PLEASE VISIT PULSO ELETROMAGNÉTICO TO READ THE ORIGINAL IN PORTUGUÊS
FREEDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD…
May 29th
Reprinted from: www.amazingwomenrock.com
“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”
The line from Janis Joplin’s 1960s hit Me and Bobby Mcgee (written by Kris Kristofferson), was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read @farah_way’s dm asking if I would write something about freedom for the Free The Hikers blog.
I went to YouTube (where else?), and searched the tune to see what I could find.
Lo and behold, I discovered a treasure – a version dubbed a “rare 1st studio recording. In a word: awesome. I’d like to dedicate it to everyone around the world who is strives to be free.
The rendition stirred something in my core, and the lyrics caused me to reflect on youth, travel, adventure, love, loss, life, and what it means to be free.
Almost a year ago, Josh, Shane and Sarah, three Americans in their late 20s, unintentionally strayed across a border.
Since then, they’ve been interred in Evin prison by the Government of Iran, just as many equally-innocent Iranians are held, tortured, and often executed at the whim of a cruel regime that seems bent on suppressing the will of its own people.
The supreme irony of the plight of these three young hikers is that they had been on a mission of mercy – they volunteered to help refugees, the poor, and those less privileged than themselves to achieve freedom from want, persecution, and insecurity.
Now they themselves are entrapped, detained, and confined. So what of their own freedom?
A short time before Josh, Shane and Sarah went on their ill-fated hike, I blogged about the death of Neda Agha Soltan in a street in Tehran. I wrote:
The image of her blood-covered face, that of a fallen angel, will be embedded in the minds of thousands, maybe even millions, who will bear witness to her oh-so-public passing when they watch it on the Internet.
I wonder how she felt about freedom, this one young woman who died in a Tehran street? Whatever her views were, it’s unlikely that she would have known when she awoke yesterday that her destiny was to become immortal in the name of it.
One young woman went into the street in Tehran on a June morning, maybe to go to the shop, or to her music lesson; maybe to fight for her country, her beliefs, and her values.
If she was demonstrating for freedom, in a twisted way, she got what she wanted, but surely not in the way she might have imagined.
Whatever her intention, she’s become a martyr of sorts, an unexpected icon, a symbol for all that needs changing in a world from which she is now forever free.
It strikes me that, like Neda, Josh, Shane and Sarah are caught up in something much bigger than themselves.
As for freedom, I believe it has more to do with the heart, mind and soul, than walls, boxes and iron bars. We all have prisons from which we wish to escape. Some are physical, some emotional, others mental.
I have complete faith that Josh, Shane and Sarah will one day be physically free. In the meantime, I pray for the freedom of their minds and spirits.
I hope they won’t allow their current adverse circumstances to crush their freedom to choose love, compassion and peace over bitterness, hatred and despair. I hope they will be steadfast in their intent to make the world a better place.
They, like us, have nothing left to lose…
Susan Macaulay, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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
LOVE HAS NO BOUNDARIES – BY CHRIS CROWSTAFF, SAFE WORLD MEDIA
May 29th
My husband Andrew and I have led the strangest lives for the last 2 months, ever since we ‘met’ you Sarah, Shane and Josh.
In these 2 months, we have constantly heard your voices, watched your faces, listened to your words, and yet you do not know us. We started this friendship with you because we felt your truth. When we read your blogs, watched your films, learnt about your lives, spoke to your friends, it was as though we had no choice but for you to become part of our world.
Right now dawn is breaking outside the window of our tiny cottage. We have spent the day and night working on a new video to help get you released. We don’t know if what we do makes a difference. We just feel we have to do this.
Today’s video is about love. It’s about the love between your good friends Emily and Basel, and their wedding that you so enjoyed just before you went on your holiday. It is also about the love between you Sarah and Shane, and the love we can feel the three of you have for each other. Making these videos has taught us a new freedom. A freedom to explore our inner creativity together and the joy of expressing a message which we feel deeply passionate about. Our freedom to do this is also about restoring your freedom to continue the things that you are passionate about.
Although you have been in your prison cells for the last 300 days, and although you may not know it, you have brought together thousands of people throughout the world joined by the same love.
FREEDOM FOR SARAH, SHANE AND JOSH – BY AURORA CARLSON, SWEDEN
May 29th
Reprinted from: www.intent.com
Dear Sarah, Shane and Josh,
I would like to tell you about the freedom you have right now, and how it can change everything.
There is a magical place deep within you that you can access if you free yourselves of all fear and worry.
If you sit comfortably and relax, and let go of all your thoughts, of all emotions and of the whole world you see around you… you will find a place of peace and silence deep within you. In that peace, there is tremendous freedom, the freedom to create another reality.
When you arrive at that silence within, put your attention in your heart and think of something or someone in your life that you are very grateful for. Sit with that image, breathe into your heart, and feel your whole body fill with gratitude and love.
From that state, see yourselves being released and back home, feel the joy of reunion with your families and see yourselves looking back to the time when you were detained, with gratitude for all you have learned and become through that experience. In other words, see from the future, with gratitude, how your present reality unfolds in the way your hearts desire.
Then let go in full trust and KNOW that reality will transform in the highest and best way for everyone. Whatever happens (your steps to freedom might not look the way you think they will), know you are loved and safe in this existence, know that your wish is heard and will transform your world. Look for clues to what actions you need to take, and be willing to act from love in every moment.
Manifesting from freedom together with you!
Love, Aurora Carlson
Sweden
#FREEDOM – by Gotham Chopra
May 29th
Today I am going to take my son to the carousel and we are going to eat popcorn and look out at the ships in the ocean. Today I am going to tell him stories about that place where the sun meets the sky. And at night before I put him to sleep, we will talk about all the people he loves and that love him – his brothers and sisters, and grandparents, and all the friends at his karate class! His awareness is free and unbounded. Today I will honor that.
I don’t know Josh, Sarah, and Shane. I’ve never met them, nor their families but their story and fate is our own. Their freedom is our own. They will be home and amongst their friends and families very soon. Today in quiet moments with my son, I will honor them too, intend that they will be home in days not weeks, amongst family and friends, amongst which I hope to count myself very soon.
Celebrate #freedom in their honor.
