Josh Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bauer in Iran in an undated photo from www.freethehikers.org
The families of three Americans held in Iran on spy charges have appealed again for their release, saying they feared for their mental well-being after more than three months in captivity.Iran said earlier this month it was charging Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, with espionage. Their families say they strayed into Iran from northern Iraq accidentally while hiking at the end of July."Sarah, Shane and Josh are being well treated and seem to be physically well, but we are more and more worried about their state of mind," Nora Shourd, the mother of Sarah Shourd, said in a statement issued by the families."Our children are virtually cut off from the world outside their jail cells and have hardly any contact with each other. Not being able to call us, and not knowing their fate, must weigh on them ever more heavily as their detention drags on.""It's high time Iran put an end to this, showed compassion and let them come home," said Cindy Hickey, Shane Bauer's mother.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials have said Washington believes strongly that there is no evidence to support espionage charges against the three and urged Tehran to release them.Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad suggested in an interview with the U.S. television network NBC in September that the Americans' release might be linked to the release of Iranian diplomats he said were being held by U.S. troops in Iraq.Under Iran's Islamic Shari'a law, espionage is punishable by death.The families have set up a website to support their children, www.freethehikers.org, and urged friends and supporters of to send them messages through a special post office box where messages can be sent for delivery to Evin Prison in Tehran."It's vital for them to know they're getting support and one way to do that is to send them messages. It also shows the Iranian authorities that people care and won't let them be forgotten," said Laura Fattal, mother of Josh Fattal.-- Reuters
A policeman inspects an Internet cafe in Beijing in June 2002.
U.S. President Barack Obama has told a Chinese audience he thinks freer information flows helped a country become stronger.He said freedom of information encouraged creativity and the flow of ideas."I am a big supporter of noncensorship" and an open Internet, Obama added.-- Reuters
French teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss has been staying in the French Embassy in Tehran since her trial began in mid-August.
The trial of a French teaching assistant who was arrested on spying charges following Iran's disputed election in June will resume on Tuesday, the ISNA news agency has reported.Clotilde Reiss, who is out of jail on bail, has been staying in the French Embassy in Tehran since her trial started on August 16. ISNA cited a statement from Tehran's Revolutionary Court for its report on the new trial session but did not give details.-- Reuters
A court in the southwestern Russian city of Astrakhan has fined a Russian activist for "illegally obtaining a jar of caviar," RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. Olga Kurnosova, the leader of the United Civil Front in St. Petersburg, was detained by police on October 4 last year while traveling by train to St. Petersburg from Astrakhan where she had attended a conference organized by the Russian opposition movement Solidarnost (Solidarity). The police found a jar of caviar in her baggage and said it might have been illegally produced. Kurnosova explained that the caviar was a gift from friends. The jar was confiscated and Kurnosova was asked not to leave St. Petersburg until an investigation was completed.In May, Kurnosova was officially charged with the purchase and/or distribution of illegally obtained items. Astrakhan's Lenin district court found her guilty on November 12 and ordered her to pay the equivalent of $175 as a fine. Her lawyer, Boris Gruzd, told RFE/RL he will appeal the verdict. Kurnosova considers the charges against her to be politically motivated because of her political activism.
Poet and women's rights activist Simin Behbahani walks past a banner reading, "One million signatures to change the biased laws" in Tehran. (file photo)
Iran's One Million Signatures campaign, which fights to gather public support against discriminatory laws in the country, has received the Women of the Year award from U.S.-based "Glamour" magazine.The campaign is operating under a lot of pressure from Iranian authorities. As Glamour notes:
Thomas Arendt
CHISINAU -- At least 12 inmates in a jail outside Moldova's capital, Chisinau, say they have started a hunger strike to protest their poor conditions in detention, RFE/RL's Moldovan Service reports.Thomas Arendt, a German citizen serving a fraud sentence in the Pruncu jail, told RFE/RL by phone on November 11 that the temperatures in the cells are unbearably low and there's no light.Arendt and another inmate, who asked to remain anonymous, said beatings and even torture are common at Pruncu.A representative from Human Rights Watch's Moldovan office told RFE/RL that it has information about the hunger strike but says the authorities have barred the group from visiting the inmates.A jail administration official told RFE/RL that only one inmate has filed an official complaint about the conditions at Pruncu.The same official said the temperature in the cells is 18-20 degrees Celsius.
Ihar Koktysh in an undated photograph.
The rights watchdog Amnesty International is demanding that authorities in Ukraine "immediately and unconditionally" release Belarusian activist Ihar Koktysh.Koktysh has been detained for more than two years for the peaceful expression of his beliefs, Amnesty says. It considers him to be a prisoner of conscience.It adds that Koktysh should not be forcibly returned to Belarus, where it says he may be at risk of the death penalty on fabricated charges.Koktysh was detained in Ukraine after Belarus requested his extradition over what Amnesty calls a "baseless accusation" that he committed murder in Belarus in January 2001. Koktysh was put on trial for murder in December 2001 after being held in detention for almost a year, during which time he was allegedly tortured and ill-treated. At his trial, he proved that he was in another city when the murder took place and was acquitted and released.He moved to Ukraine and married. In 2007, Ukrainian authorities honored an extradition request after Belarus's Prosecutor-General appealed the verdict and a retrial ordered.Koktysh's appeal for refugee status was denied by Ukrainian authorities.Amnesty notes that a number of international human rights conventions to which Ukraine is a state party prohibit the deportation or extradition of anyone to a country where he or she may face the death penalty, torture, or other ill-treatment or other grave human rights violations.
RFE/RL journalists take risks, face threats, and make sacrifices every day in an effort to gather the news. Our new "Journalists In Trouble" web page recognizes their courage and conviction, and documents the high price that many have paid simply for doing their jobs. More