QUOTES
This is reserved for supporters, friends & family to post quotes that speak to the hikers’ situation in one way or another.
LETTER FROM SARAH SHOURD TO SUPPORTERS
Oct 21st
Dear Friends & Supporters:
I came out of prison feeling frozen. I put up walls inside walls because if I stayed tender for 13 months in prison I would have exposed myself to too much pain; because there wasn’t enough beauty in a day to ward off the long, spiritual winter; because I needed them to stay sane.
More than anything I’m grateful to finally be sitting here writing about prison in the past tense.
Yet, for Shane and Josh, prison is still locked in the eternal present.
Sarah Shourd with her mother, Nora
I am one of the only people in the world that has their voices still fresh in mind. They were truly joyful to see me go free. Tightly grasping my hands in theirs they said “we believe in you, Sarah, no one is more ready and capable of jumping into the free world and fighting for us than you are.”
Free-life offers new challenges and very different obstacles than I faced in prison. I have reentered a world of fear and uncertainty…and also of great hope. Now I know first-hand what our families and all of you have been experiencing all along.
I learned patience and perseverance those long months and it’s those lessons more than anything that are serving me now.
The most important thing that I can offer you are the words of Shane and Josh. What they want to say to you, more than anything else, is “thank you.” Not even a message as basic as that has been able to fly from their lips, suspended by tender air currents and carried into your ears, for all these months.
“Thank you.”
Since the day I stepped off that plane into Muscat, Oman I’ve met with three presidents, numerous foreign ministers and ambassadors. Not one of them means any more or less to me than one of you.
I fervently believe that everyone’s efforts led to my freedom, everyone’s belief that the world contains as much goodness, and as much justice, as we create and put into motion. Not an ounce more or an ounce less.
I want this freedom, this justice for Shane and Josh, with every morsel of my being. Every breath I take, every time I open my eyes in the morning and every time I close them at night, I see them. I know them and I love them.
I want to ask you to please, look to the positive, feel the power and the strength of what you’ve done. Help us give one, last, huge push!!!
Sarah Shourd & Friends Reunite
I’ve asked the world to redouble its efforts. But what does that mean? It means do what you do best, whatever it may be. Do what you do best for Shane and Josh. We need funds for legal expenses, translation and travel. We need people to buy FREE THE HIKERS t-shirts and jewelry. We need prayers and we need action. We need more people to visit the website and sign the new petition. Make a “Free All Three” banner and hang it up in the most visible spot you can find. We need you to mobilize and be ready for the next step when it comes.
We have all been changed and continue to be changed by this experience. Thanks to all the love and support I’ve felt in the last month I’m slowing thawing out, but sometimes it feels like a glacier in there, waiting for thousands of years for just enough sun. When Josh and Shane get out they will help me figure it out. No one knows me as well as they do. When the three of us are together and free, I know we will heal.
Prison is not heaven or hell. Nothing in life made us ready for this experience, but Shane and Josh are coping. They are as strong as they need to be. They will walk out unbroken.
One of my students once said to me, “A part of me is yours forever” because I was there to help him get through a difficult time in his life. I want to say the same to all of you on behalf of myself, Shane and Josh, “A part of us is yours, forever.”
“Thank you.”
When Josh and Shane are free we will all be able to exhale collectively, pause and then ask, “Who’s next?” There are millions more lined up, waiting to get free. “What’s next?” There are countless changes that devoted, committed people like ourselves can band together and fight for. I’m looking forward to the day. I’m hoping that Shane and Josh will soon be standing with us, asking these questions and finding answers.
Sarah Shourd
SPECIAL SCREENING OF SHANE BAUER’S FILM ABOUT DARFUR
Oct 19th
Special Screening of Songs to Enemies and Deserts
Free the Hikers, in conjunction with MN Film Arts, are hosting a special screening of this documentary created by Shane Bauer and David Martinez. Songs to Enemies and Deserts is a work of art created by Shane and David about the people of Darfur and their pursuit of a peaceful community. Please join us!!
- DATE: October 23, 2010
- TIME: 1:30 PM (35 minutes in length)
- PLACE: St Anthony Main
- ADDRESS: 115 SE Main St, Minneapolis, MN 55414
- COST: $12 ($8 Students)
- FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
- DOWNLOAD PDF FLYER
- EVENT PAGE ON MAIN FREE THE HIKERS SITE
This documentary is about an area of Sudan that is controlled by two factions of armed rebels. It is about the daily lives of the farmers and herders who live there as they interact with the rebels who try and hold the forces of the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army at bay.
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID & SHANE FOR CURRENT TV ABOUT THE FILM:
This is a short news piece that Current TV did about Songs to Enemies and Deserts. Shane is on the viewer’s right and his co-director, David Martinez is on the left.
SHANE BAUER ON MAKING THE FILM, REPUBLISHED FROM HIS WEBSITE:
Songs to Enemies and Deserts:
A Film About The Rebels Of Darfur
From the mountains of Jebel Marra in central Darfur a ragged group of rebels swept down onto Sudanese military bases in 2003, routing the government’s soldiers and making off with rifles, artillery, and vehicles. The Sudan Liberation Army had scored its first victory, and no one could predict what would follow. Instead of taking on the rebels directly, the Khartoum government sent bombers and horse mounted militias to murder and terrorize Darfuri civilians. The ensuing horrors were documented by the international news media and the world’s outcry was part of the reason that the attacks subsided, at least temporarily. With the government murdering the civilian population to quell the rebellion, the rebels became the civilians’ only protection force.
Who are these men and why did they begin fighting in the first place, and what part do they play in the ongoing situation that is Darfur? Their demands are widely supported by the civilian population: they want roads and schools, clean water, health care, and representation in their country’s despotic government, controlled by an elite that has ruled from the country’s northern region since the Sudanese gained independence from the British in 1956.
David Martinez and I wanted to understand these rebels’ world, their motivations, their histories, who they were and why they fought. We felt that in all of the attention that Darfur was getting, the Darfuri people themselves were often portrayed as abject victims, with hands outstretched, needing the west to come to their rescue. And yet here were Darfuris who had risen up against a murderous and racist regime, people who were very far from being helpless Africans.
In August 2007 we went and found them in North Darfur, lived with them for five weeks, and shot a movie about them.
ABOUT THE FILM:
Songs To Enemies And Deserts, (35 minutes), NTSC, Color, Filmed on digital video. In Arabic, Zaghawa, and English with English subtitles. Directed by David Martinez and Shane Bauer, photographed by David Martinez, edited by David Martinez, Shane Bauer, and Iona Sidi. Sound mixed by Luis Guerra, Terremoto Studios, New Mexico.
SCENE FROM THE FILM:
Our heartfelt thanks to MN Film Arts for their assistance & to all supporters of Free The Hikers!
Sarah was released September 14, 2010. Shane and Josh remain in detention.
Please show your support for our efforts to release them to their families.
ALL proceeds go to FREE THE HIKERS!
#USHIKER SARAH’S LAST EMAIL TO HER MOTHER: @TRENORA
Aug 3rd
On July 30th 2009, Sarah Shourd, wrote the following email to her mother Nora in the US:
Hello Sweetness,
So, we’re traveling.
Actually, we’re in N.Iraq!
It’s totally safe.
The Kurds in this area have been pro-American since 1991. No single American has ever been hurt on Kurdish territory.
So, don’t worry.
Tonight we’re going camping.
I love you.
My article is going to be published on the 7th!!!
There were fireworks in the streets of Solemeniya last night, they just had their first democratic elections.
Love Sarah
The following day she was abducted by Iranian authorities and has remained in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorius Evin prison, ever since.
Sarah in Iran
Sarah Shourd has been held in solitary confinement in Iran for over a year now.
This film , by a Safe World for Women, starts with the last words she wrote to her mother the day before she was kidnapped with her fiance Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.
Then, in an interview with Chris Crowstaff from a UK based women’s rights NGO, Sarah’s mother talks about the conditions in which Sarah is being held and how Sarah will be coping.
MUSIC:
“Carry Me Home” by Shannon Smy & Seize the Day
TRISTAN ANDERSON’S PARENTS: “RELEASE #USHIKERS”
May 30th
Tristan Anderson
Tristan Anderson is a longtime friend of hikers Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer. Following a peaceful protest against Israel’s Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin, Israeli troops hit Tristan, an American citizen, in the forehead with a teargas canister, critically injuring him. That was on Friday, March 13th, 2009. More than a year later, Tristan, 39, remains hospitalized near Tel Aviv with a severe brain injury. It is not known when he will be able to be transferred back to the United States.
This is a letter of support that Tristan’s parents wrote to Iranian Authorities, imploring them to return the hikers to their families. In addition to being a heartfelt and moving statement of support, this letter explains that Shane and Sarah, like Tristan, are caring individuals of conscience, concerned with justice and the well-being of all people. Anyone who knows them as Tristan and his parents do, can attest to the fact that the accusation that the hikers are “spies” for the US government is not only ridiculous, but unthinkable.
Please note: Farsi and Arabic translations of this letter are also available as PDF documents.
LETTER OF SUPPORT BY THE PARENTS OF TRISTAN ANDERSON:
February 10, 2010
His Excellency Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President, Islamic Republic of Iran
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of IranHis Excellency Ayatollah Sadegh Ardeshir Larijani
Head of the Judiciary
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur Street
Vali Asr Avenue, South of Serah-e Jomhouri
Tehran, Islamic Republic of IranRE: Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, & Josh Fattal
Your Excellencies:
As the parents of Tristan Anderson, an American citizen who was critically wounded while supporting the rights of Palestinians, we are deeply distressed by the continued detention in Iran of Tristan’s good friends Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal. We appeal to you to do everything in your power to bring about their prompt release.
Shane standing on the spot where Tristan was shot.
On March 13, 2009, our son Tristan was grievously wounded in the Palestinian village of Ni’lin. Tristan was taking photographs following a non-violent protest against Israel’s annexation wall when an Israeli soldier shot him from approximately 60 meters with a high-velocity tear gas projectile designed to travel up to 500 meters. Tristan survived multiple life-saving surgeries but remains in a Tel Aviv hospital, where he works daily to recover.
Upon learning of Tristan’s suffering, people throughout the world have embraced him for following his conscience and not the policies of his government. Shane, Sarah and Josh are close friends of Tristan’s who similarly follow their own consciences. With Tristan, they share common principles, projects and community. Before traveling to the Middle East, they worked together on social justice issues in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tristan was a regular guest at the house where Shane and Josh lived, and all four worked with Food Not Bombs, a food relief group that serves free meals to the homeless.
A few days after Tristan was shot, Shane, Sarah and Nora (Sarah’s mother) traveled to visit him in the hospital in Tel Aviv. They carried roses from Palestinian friends in Syria, where Sarah and Shane were living. Then, just before Josh arrived in Syria, and shortly before the group’s fateful hiking trip to Iraqi Kurdistan, Shane and Shon Meckfessel (the fourth hiker) returned to visit Tristan in the hospital to support us through a difficult time.
We empathize with the parents of Shane, Sarah and Josh. It pains us greatly, on top of the tragedy we have already suffered, to see Tristan’s close friends made to bear the burden of grievances between nations. They are not instruments of their government, but independent thinkers who set their own course and seek to explore beyond the rhetoric, clichés and propaganda which stain the lens and stifle debate. Tristan, Shane, Sarah and Josh all journeyed to the Middle East with the purest of intentions: to expand their cultural horizons, to learn the rich histories and customs of other people and to seek a common humanity. Please do not punish them for the trespasses of others.
With all our hearts, we implore you to return Shane, Sarah and Josh to their families.
Sincerely,
Nancy Anderson & Mike Anderson
CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THIS LETTER IN FARSI.
CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THIS LETTER IN ARABIC.
“FROM THE WEST DOWN TO THE EAST…ANY DAY NOW” —by Laura Fattal
May 28th
I pledge my total commitment to working for Josh’s release through energetic and endless conversations with a wildly expanded world of friends who want Josh, Shane and Sarah free to continue their lives!….any day now, any day, now, “they’ shall be released”
the mom, Laura
QUOTES ABOUT THE SPIRIT
Apr 30th
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“Spirit has fifty times the strength and staying-power of brawn and muscle.”
~Mark Twain
American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
~Kahlil Gibran
Lebanese born American philosophical Essayist, Novelist and Poet.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
“For I am full of spirit and resolve to meet all perils very constantly.”
~William Shakespeare
English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet.
PERSEVERANCE QUOTE
Apr 17th
“I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done”
~Buddha
FAITH QUOTE
Apr 16th
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was a great humanist, poet, writer, painter, musician, novelist, dramatist and educator. In 1913, he became the first Asian to receive the Nobel Prize.
VIDEO: HIKERS’ MOMS SPEAK AT 250 DAYS HOPE VIGIL IN MN
Apr 12th
In this video, Shane’s mother, Cindy Hickey, and Sarah’s mother, Nora Shourd, are speaking to a crowd of supporters at the 250 Days Hope Vigil, held in Pine City, Minnesota on April 11, 2009.
Mother’s Day is less than a month away and while most moms are preparing for of pampering, brunches, and gifts, Pine City resident Cindy Hickey is fearing the day. Hickey fears that she will not be able to be with or even get a phone call from her son Shane. If Mother’s Day is anything like the past 255 days, Shane Bauer will spend May 9th in an Iranian Prison. He and two other Americans have been detained there since July 31st. Sunday, a vigil was held in Pine City in supporter of Bauer, his mother , friends and family.
—Sam Klemet Reports.
Cindy Hickey & Nora Shourd lead the way at the Pine City 250 Days Hope Vigil
HUMANITARIAN QUOTE:
Apr 8th
“One person’s suffering is everyone’s responsibility.”
~ Ban Ki-moon, Secretary—General Unitied Nations.
This quote is from a video message he made for the first observance of World Humanitarian Day on 19 AUGUST 2009.
Hopefully the suffering of the Hikers and their families will end soon with a happy reunion.
