Iran frees Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal — two U.S. hikers it has imprisoned since 2009

Iran’s auto­crat­ic regime today freed two Amer­i­can hik­ers that it has held in prison for more than two years in a move it called a “human­i­tar­i­an gesture”.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fat­tal, both twen­ty-nine, were allowed to leave Iran’s infa­mous Evin prison and tak­en by a diplo­mat­ic car­a­van to an Iran­ian air­port. They were then flown to the Sul­tanate of Oman, which helped secure their release. There, they were met by their families.

“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,” the fam­i­lies said in a joint mes­sage dis­trib­uted to the press.

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma hailed the news.

“I wel­come the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fat­tal from deten­tion in Iran and am very pleased that they are being reunit­ed with their loved ones,” the Pres­i­dent said in a just-released state­ment. “The tire­less advo­ca­cy of their fam­i­lies over these two years has won my admi­ra­tion, and is now com­ing to an end with Josh and Shane back in their arms. All Amer­i­cans join their fam­i­lies and friends in cel­e­brat­ing their long-await­ed return home.”

“We are deeply grate­ful to His Majesty Sul­tan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, Iraqi Pres­i­dent Jalal Tal­a­bani, the Swiss gov­ern­ment, and to all our part­ners and allies around the world who have worked stead­fast­ly over the past two years to secure the release of Shane and Josh,” added the President.

“It is a wel­come – if long over­due – step that the Iran­ian author­i­ties have final­ly seen sense and released Shane Bauer and Josh Fat­tal,” agreed Has­si­ba Hadj Sahraoui, who serves as Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Deputy Direc­tor for Mid­dle East and North Africa. Sahraoui point­ed out that the Iran­ian regime has held the two men for more than two years for no good reason.

“All avail­able evi­dence strong­ly sug­gests that the Iran­ian author­i­ties have known all along that these men were not spies and should have been released. They should now release all pris­on­ers of con­science held sim­ply for peace­ful­ly express­ing their views,” Sahraoui said in a state­ment post­ed to Amnesty’s web­site.

More infor­ma­tion about Shane, Josh, and their ordeal is avail­able at FreeTheHikers.org, a web­site set up to chron­i­cle their plight and explain how they came to be in the clutch­es of the Iran­ian regime in the first place.

We at NPI join Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in thank­ing every­one who worked to secure Josh and Shane’s release. We are glad to know that they will be now be able to return to free­dom here in the Unit­ed States. Hope­ful­ly, when they feel up to it, they’ll be will­ing to share their sto­ry with their coun­try­men and give us a bet­ter idea of what hap­pens to peo­ple that Iran’s regime arbi­trar­i­ly decides to throw in jail.