WHO ARE THE HIKERS?
One thing we hope this blog will accomplish is to help answer the question of who are they, really? This section will include stories about anything the hikers worked on and/or cared about. It will also feature their own writings, photography and video productions.
A Thousand Thanks ~ Your Friends, Josh, Sarah and Shane
Nov 24th
Dear Friends and Supporters,Recently, the three of us sat down in Shane’s Mom’s living room and read through some of the boxes of letters that you all have been sending us over the last two years. Although it was painful to have had to wait so long to read your words, it was also overwhelmingly beautiful to have them at last.
We realize that it also must be hard for all of you who wrote, many of you who have never even met us, to know that your letters were barred from getting though. We want you to know that the few bits and scraps that did get in gave us a taste of the vast support we had on the outside. The Iranian authorities responsible for holding us hostage were too cruel to give us most of your letters, but we felt connected to all of you despite that. That connection gave us incredible strength and faith that we would get though the pain of our detention and arrive at this day.
Every effort, no matter how seemingly small, added up. This campaign was somehow able to reach to the other side of the earth, to effect a government that prides itself on resisting pressure and eventually to open the doors of our prison cells and give us our lives back. The fact that such a diverse body of people around the world have found common ground in fighting the injustice done to us shows just how much we can achieve together. What we can do seems so much bigger now.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem long ago that the three of us were huddled together in the prison’s open air room, talking about the gratitude we felt for the lives we lived before prison and our hopes for a good life that still lay ahead. Now that it is here, we hope that the vibrant community that has formed around our imprisonment will stay together in some form. We hope that we all can support each other as we heal and use what we’ve learned to have an even bigger impact.
Know that this holiday season the three of us are beginning our lives again, the lives we’ve long been dreaming of. Tonight, when we sit down to share Thanksgiving dinner with our loved ones, we’ll be sending out a thousand thanks to all of you for helping make this happen.
Your Friends,
Josh, Sarah and Shane
STATEMENT from Families of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd following news of their release
Sep 22nd
THE FAMILIES OF SHANE BAUER, JOSH FATTAL AND SARAH SHOURD RELEASED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT TODAY FOLLOWING NEWS OF THEIR RELEASE:
“Today can only be described as the best day of our lives. We have waited for nearly 26 months for this moment and the joy and relief we feel at Shane and Josh’s long-awaited freedom knows no bounds. We now all want nothing more than to wrap Shane and Josh in our arms, catch up on two lost years and make a new beginning, for them and for all of us. For now, we especially would like to thank His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman and his envoy Dr. Salem Al Ismaily; our lawyer, Mr. Masoud Shafii; and the Swiss Ambassador to Iran, Livia Leu Agosti, and her colleagues, for working to make today a reality. At the same time, our deep gratitude extends to many, many others, from governments, institutions and noted campaigners to tens of thousands of people around the world. Their support for Shane, Josh, Sarah and our families has sustained us and comforted us throughout this time. Our appreciation for the warmth and love of our fellow human beings is unending and we know that Shane and Josh will always be grateful.”
NOTE TO MEDIA: The following family members were in Muscat, Oman, to welcome Shane and Josh: Al Bauer (father of Shane Bauer), Cindy Hickey (mother), Nicole Lindstrom and Shannon Bauer (sisters) Jacob Fattal (father of Josh Fattal), Laura Fattal (mother), Alex Fattal (brother) Sarah Shourd (fiancée of Shane Bauer and good friend of Josh Fattal, detained with them and released in September 2010)
CONTACT:
Samantha Topping
samantha@toppingmedia.com
Office: +1 646 340 1709
Cell: +1 212 810 9753
Lines of Hope: The Freedom of Dreams ~ Sarah Shourd
Sep 7th
Locked in a cell, your dreams are one of the only places you can go to feel free. There is a place in your subconscious where the countless restrictions placed on your body and spirit are temporarily lifted, where you can soar.
Wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket with a shirt wrapped around my eyes to block out the flourescent lights, my lonely cot at Evin Prison was a small comfort, a reminder that I had made it through yet another day. In our dreams, Shane, Josh and I could travel across the world, revisit the past and even venture into the future. I used to dream up adventures in the streets and markets of Tehran, I would talk to imaginary Iranian people and assure them of our innocence. I dreamed that I was finally allowed a cell mate; she was sad like me but we were together and she promised to teach me Farsi. I once dreamed that I was able to hide a kitten under my chador and sneak it into my cell, another time I received a surprise phone call from President Obama and yet another time my sweet mother came to visit me (which later came true) in a garden inside the prison. Those dreams were the only way that Shane, Josh and I could see the faces of our loved ones, hear their words and stay connected to the world we love.
Since I’ve been free, many of you have told me about your dreams about Shane, Josh and I over the last 2 years. Dreams are powerful connectors, so I’d like to ask you all to share yours here now, anonymously if you like, just like Shane, Josh and I did so many times during the brief time we had together in the prison’s open-air room. I’ll start with my own, one that I had while I was still detained:
I dreamed that I woke up in the middle of the night and the door of my cell was wide open. Somehow, I got a hold of some giant crayons. I walked down all the corridors, upstairs and downstairs. The bright lights were all on as usual but everyone was sleeping, even the guards, and there wasn’t a sound. Wearing a long white dress, I began to draw lines across the walls and cell doors. I drew a line across the whole prison, crossing it out and connecting all of us inside at the same time. The next day (in my dream), the investigators called me into the interrogation room and accused me of being the one who graffitied the walls. “How could I have done it when I was locked in my cell and I have no crayons?” I asked. “Anyway,” I said, “those marks are lines of hope. There are a lot of people trying to help us on the outside. It could have been any one of them that drew those lines. It’s art,” I told them, “it’s not a crime for them to give us hope.”
More than any other topic, Josh, Shane and I dreamed about the day we would all be freed. All 3 of us dreamed dozens of times about a big homecoming party, with everyone we had ever known in attendance. We called these “Temporary Freedom Dreams” and they helped us keep our hope alive, knowing that every day we were that much closer to the real thing.
Until Freedom, Sarah Shourd
To Our Fearless Leader, Josh ~ With love, Your IHP students
Sep 1st
To Our Fearless Leader,
Josh and some of his IHP Health & Community Study Abroad students in India.
It has been over two years since we all strapped pink pieces of rope around our wrists and ankles, over two years since we stood in a line to hug you good bye on your travels, and two long years since the world has been blessed by your freedom.
Despite the bracelets falling off, being removed for various ceremonies and a few strong bracelets surviving – we have all kept our promise, to stay in touch and to update each other on our lives past the 4 months of our world adventure. Much of our discussion over the past few years has been of you, missing you, remembering the joy you brought to our family, and focusing our efforts to send you our love, thoughts, prayers, and strength. Many of us attended various days and nights of peaceful protests and vigil on the first and second anniversaries of your detainment, among other days, and many of us have gone on hikes all over this country and others in your honor. We hold you in our hearts.
We hold you in our hearts all over the world. Post IHP we have found ourselves in a wide variety of places and jobs, each of which has been a result of your impact and our time together on IHP.
Josh's IHP Health & Community Study Abroad community in China
In the world of academia: Eric L, Komal, Katie, Mariam, Pooja, Anita and Shannon are off studying to become truly amazing doctors and have even found time to travel to Cambodia and Ecuador. Holly, Emily C and Sarah chose to pursue a Masters in Public Health. Lauren, with her love of naturopathy, is receiving a Masters in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition. Serg finished his Masters degree and has returned home to Singapore. Ben is working for Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a research assistant, where there is truly never a dull moment. Prior to his work, he found some time to travel back to India, where much of our journey together began.
A large contingent of us stayed in the public health sector, Victoria is very appropriately working for the Humane Society, focusing on religious outreach, Emily K is working for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Bridget is advocating for children’s right to healthcare, Sami is working for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk, Barbara is loving her job at a community mental health center, Heather just got a job with the American Diabetes Association, focusing on minority populations, and Abby just started a job in Boston working with children with behavioral issues.
A few of us ventured outside our IHP experience to wonderful and truly appropriate jobs. Eric K is putting his excellent penmanship to work for an advertising agency and the ever-motherly Kate is a nursery school teacher.
The nature-lovers of us have found a home as well, Helena is living in Maine working on experimental education for middle school children, and Kyle just recently moved to Ohio to do outdoor education.
Josh's IHP Health & Community students in South Africa
Lastly, a handful of us have spent most of our post-graduate life outside of the country. Nora has been in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, Yogeeta moved back home to Mumbai starting a research fellowship at a strategic philanthropy foundation, Leah moved to England to get a dual Masters of Philosophy in Public Health and Zoology, Walker spent a year in China finishing her studies and immersing herself in a culture she truly loves, and finally, though not surprisingly, Sasha has been living in Rwanda and co-founded Spark MicroGrants, a wonderful organization that supports local social sector projects in East Africa.
Josh, you would be so proud of all of us and we know you would be celebrating in our successes and with us. Just as you took care of us with your tea and calming Tai Chi moves on that cold day in China, when we were all sick and a little homesick, we are taking care of you now. We send you our strength, our love, and our constant and unfaltering support. We will continue to focus the power of our family to you, until you are safely home.
We love you, we miss you, and we will stand in solidarity until the day you come home.
With love,
Your IHP students
3000 DAYS without FREEDOM ~ Rebecca ‘Walker’ Christoforo
Aug 25th
When hikers Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer were tried in Iran several weeks ago, I felt a kind of quiet excitement settle into our campaign. It was obvious that they would be acquitted, having already spent two years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Their story, their passports, travel documents, and witnesses all showed the authorities what we, their family and friends, knew all along. Josh and Shane are simply the curious type, people who enjoy seeing things with their own eyes. They are not reckless, nor are they militant, and it would be even more absurd to assume they have a contract with the American government. I think a lot of us felt a sense of finality after the trial, and we began the preparations to welcome them home. But this morning, I received a call telling me that they had been charged with espionage and sentenced to 8 years of prison. 8 years. That’s almost 3000 days of waking up without fresh air, without sunshine, without games and books. 3000 days without direction and purpose, without the freedom to choose your lunch or ride your bicycle or listen to music. I don’t think most of us can comprehend the lifetimes that go by while living in confinement, or the desperation that can set in when we feel our autonomy stripped away and humanity ignored.
To fight this desperation, Josh and Shane have been ‘hunger striking’, or refusing to eat until concessions are made in their favor. It gives them leverage against their jailors, for (as terrible as it sounds) they are only valuable if alive. Shane’s fiancee Sarah Shourd, who was imprisoned with them but released for health reasons, tells us that they have already fasted several times to receive information about their case. Although she has had no contact with the two since returning home a little less than a year ago, she knows that they are continuing to fast- perhaps to receive letters, books, or more time in the courtyard.
Josh teaching IHP Health & Community 2009 students in Geneva, Switzerland
It is sad that Josh, who has studied and grown food so passionately, would be forced to take such measures. Before I knew him, he was working at the Aprovecho Sustainability Center, where he spent several weeks eating only foods that came from a 100-mile radius of the farm, which included a pilgrimage to the Oregon coast for salt. A couple of years later, in 2009, we met while traveling with a community health study abroad program. He was the teaching fellow, which placed him somewhere in between us students and our professors. Josh didn’t teach often, but when he did his lessons were always memorable and frequently beautiful. There was one class in particular that stands out to me now, those first days of the program in Switzerland. Josh began the class by asking us to think about our relationship with food, and reminding us that all good food comes from sunlight and clean water. He used the ‘power point’ program as a way to illustrate his ideas. The slides were simple, with no images and just a couple words. One looked like this:
FOOD = SUNLIGHT
It is a simple idea, and one that often gets forgotten in refrigerated aisles, but it was the beginning of a lesson that Josh would continue to impress upon us as the semester continued. Food is not something to be taken for granted, but something to cherish and consider. To know this can change how you relate to the world.
As I ate today, and thought of Josh and his hunger fasting, and of the many others who have fasted in protest, I couldn’t help but feel it is a true crime that a man who has such a connection to his food would have to use it as a means to an end. Food equals sunlight, but in Evin prison food equals power and information. With the recent verdict on his trial, and with only 20 days to appeal, we anticipate that Josh and Shane will continue to fast. It is in solidarity with them that I, and several other students who traveled with Josh in 2009, will continue to fast as well.
Rebecca ‘Walker’ Christoforo
VIDEO: Josh’s 29th Birthday…Cottage Grove style
Aug 3rd
The prayerboats were sent off at dusk on Josh’s birthday, Main St, Cottage Grove, where the river flows sweet and straight right through town. We made 40 or more boats altogether during his birthday party. Kids, elders, Josh’s friends and family, some media, a couple that drove from out of town to leave a donation.
We sent the boats out to river in a line, handing them off like a firemen’s bucket brigade. Hand to hand. The first one, made of moss, caught fire and went out in a little boat blaze as it floated downriver. Josh would’ve liked that. Out to sea! Everyone stayed on the riverbank and the old covered bridge a long time. The the cloudy sky blazed in an eruption of pink and red fire – a sunset the likes of which we hadn’t seen for a long while.
Before the launch, we played games in the middle of large heart make of knotted scarves. We broke bread together. Sliced up a 10 layer cake baked in the shape of a Ziggurat. Sat in a circle around an altar full of flowers, candles, art, animal totems. We exchanged presents to honor Josh’s desire for a generosity based economy, trading with friends and neighbors. Everyone had stories of Josh and offered their gifts to the circle. We called the center of the circle “the fire” in memory of Josh ecstatically throwing his favorite shirt into a fire at at party.
Everyone cried when Alex threw Josh’s 2nd favorite shirt with the Zapatista red star on it, into the “fire”. At the end, our community put the t-shirt up on a wall at the bookstore. His brother took home a piece of 100yr old yew wood with a poem about surviving the fires that surround you. We agreed we should keep the rest for Josh.
We are so grateful for Josh’s life, we love him so.
Tegra Fisk and the Cottage Grove community
VIDEO: Happy Birthday Shane: Shane Bauer in the eyes of his loved ones
Aug 3rd
In the days leading up to a decision in Iranian courts regarding innocent hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, this video, first shown at a birthday tribute to Shane, takes a closer look at Shane’s work as a journalist/photographer before his captivity in Iran.
Here some of Shane’s closest friends, colleagues and family members talk about why Shane first traveled to the Middle East, why he began intensively studying Arabic when he was 19 and why he became a journalist and photographer.
Filmed by Natalie Avital and edited by Bobby Field. Additional footage from David Martinez and Jacqueline Soohen.
My birthday wish for Shane Bauer on his 2nd year unjustly held in Iran ~ Salina Abji
Jul 13th
Photo taken by Alex Fattal
Dearest Shane,
I am marking your second birthday by envisioning you walking out of Evin Prison a free man, full of courage, strength & gratitude. Fast forward to your wedding day with a radiant Sarah as your life partner & Josh standing strong beside you as your best man. Fast forward to your next birthday shared with your close knit family, full of joy & love & gratitude for your freedom. Fast forward to the day when you win your next award for humanitarian work that upholds the principles of justice, equality and peace.
On your birthday, I hope you can hear Sarah’s voice singing “all they can take from us is a piece of time” — and that you can feel us all hoping & praying that this challenging period will soon be well behind you.
Much love to you & Josh,
Salina
xoxo
PS. Friends, you can view some of Shane’s award-winning photojournalism here. My personal favourite is the series on residential housing projects in San Fran
What Were They Doing There? Iraqi Kurdistan and the ‘Other Iraq’
Apr 22nd
Ahmed Awa
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the world has come to think of the country in blanket terms. The Iraq that we see on the news is a country where Americans and other Westerners go as soldiers or journalists. Of course, Iraq is also a country where people laugh, sing, raise their children and live the best lives they can despite the devastating toll that war has taken.
In fact, Iraq is not a uniform country at all. Iraqi Kurdistan is strikingly green and mountainous, the majority of its population is Kurdish and the food, clothing, language and culture are distinct from the rest of Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan is also safe for tourism. It is not a war zone and no American has been killed or kidnapped in this region in recent decades. Iraqi Kurdistan became semi-autonomous in 1991 when the U.S. set up a no-fly zone to protect the Kurdish people from Saddam Hussein’s tanks and planes.
Shane, Josh, Sarah and Shon researched Northern Iraq before they traveled. They looked at websites such as this one, which shows the ‘Other Iraq’ as a safe and beautiful destination that thousands of tourists visit each year. Perhaps more importantly, they had first-hand advice from several friends like Sarah’s colleague Matthew McNaught, who had recently taken the trip himself, and from Sarah’s Arabic tutor in Damascus, himself a Kurd, who advised her that Northern Iraq is the best place to learn more about Kurdish culture first-hand.
The people of Iraqi Kurdistan are friendly and welcoming and people who know the region are shocked that something so terrible and unjust could happen to Shane, Josh and Sarah. Six weeks before Sarah, Shane, Josh and Shon traveled to Northern Iraq, the U.S. State Department downgraded its travel advisory for the area. “To date, not one U.S. citizen, soldier or contractor has been kidnapped, wounded or killed in the Kurdistan Region,” Karim Sinjari, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister for the Interior said at the time. Some of the world’s most respected publications continue to recommend Iraqi Kurdistan as a place to visit, including the New York Times and National Geographic. What happened to Josh, Shane and Sarah while they were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan is unprecedented, but going there as a tourist is not unusual.
Hey Shane & Josh…Regards, Jonah Kamalakar, #India
Apr 5th
Hey Shane and Josh,
Regards,
Jonah
