Two American men arrested more than two years ago while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border have been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges that include espionage, state TV reported Saturday, in an apparent sharp blow to hopes their release was imminent.
Link
You can read about the case here, at wikipedia.
What to do? FREE THE HIKERS
My heart and thoughts go out to these two, and their family and friends. I know neither of these two men, and their politics certainly do not agree with mine. Bauer is quite a good photojournalist. Link. More about Fattal here.
Bauer and Fattal are in some seriously deep do-do. Iran is using them to score points against the Great Satan (That's US). The irony is that Bauer and Fattal are hippy peacenik Leftists. That aside, Iran wants a confession from the two men, and the 8-year sentence is their method of pressuring the two men to give them what they want.
Assuming they are not spies, which I think is more than a fair assumption, that really makes things tough for Bauer and Fattal.
What can we do?
Sign the petition to help them:
FREE THE HIKERS