Update on Iran & the 'hikers' in its prisons

After crossing into Iran, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, inset photo, were arrested by Iranian guards July 31, 2009. Courtesy: freethehikers.org

Hour 2

LAURA FATTAL of Elkins Park has just returned from Iran, where she was able to visit her son Josh for the first time since he was imprisoned in August. Iran calls him and his two companions “spies,” but everyone else, including the U.S. government, says they were just hiking close to the Iranian border in Kurdistan when why were arrested. On today's Radio Times, we’ll talk to Josh’s mom about her trip, her son, and what it feels like to be swept up in the tension between the U.S. and Iran. Then, we’ll hear from HALEH ESFANDIARI, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program and herself a survivor of unjust imprisonment in Iran. Then we’ll hear from KARIM SADJADPOUR, an associate in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program, about U.S.-Iranian diplomacy, and how these “hikers” fit into it, if at all.

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