and gave the protesters their whole-hearted endorsement.
In Iran, the media cited the endorsement as further evidence that the US political and economic system is on the verge of collapse—although the hikers’ position would seem to clash with the Islamic Republic’s insistence that the three are all trained and skilled CIA professionals.
Shane Bauer took the microphone and said, “We were hearing about [the Occupy movement] little bit by little bit. But it wasn’t until getting back here to this city that it really hit me, that this is serious, that this is big.”
Bauer said, “This the perfect place to celebrate our freedom I feel proud of this happening in my city.”
Actually, Bauer is from Minnesota, but he went to college in next-door Berkeley.
The trio also spoke out in support of prisoners in California state prisons who have gone on hunger strikes to protest the use of solitary confinement as punishment for unruliness.
Josh Fattal said he was showing support for the prisoners by going on a one-day fast. “Solitary confinement was the most cruel part of my detainment. And getting out of solitary was the fist moment in a long process of feeling more free,” he said.
Bauer and Fattal spent most of their two years and two months in a cell together. But for the first several weeks, they have said they were kept in solitary.
In Tehran, the US movement is getting huge coverage in the media, with special emphasis on arrests, which are cited as proof positive that the US government does not really support the right of protest and suppresses freedom of expression.
The media in Tehran also state as fact that the US government is censoring news of the protest movement—in other words, responding to protests the same way the Islamic Republic responded in 2009. The regime is simultaneously condemning what it says is American policy while at the same time publicizing it as if to justify its own repressive policies as simply the global norm.
Meanwhile, 220 of the 290 Majlis deputies signed a statement last week throwing their support behind the American protesters as a great popular movement against the capitalist system and a prelude to its collapse. And PressTV reported that students from 52 of Iran’s more than 80 universities had signed their names to a similar endorsement.
Sadeq Larijani, the chairman of the Judiciary, cited what he called the US suppression of the protests as a “human rights violation” by the US government and said Iran would sue the United States for crimes against the American people as well as against the Iranian people. He did not say in what court this suit would be filed.
Threatening suits in international courts is a common rhetorical ploy in the regime, but rarely is any action actually taken.