they appreciated all the attention lavished by Americans on their imprisonment and asked them to think about the Iranians locked up in Iran—and Americans abused in the United States.
Speaking at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Bauer said he often thinks of the political prisoners he left behind in Evin prison and hopes they, too, will soon be freed.
“There are so many people who I wish had the attention we had,” Bauer said. “I’ll never stop feeling connected to those people.”
Fattal said many people in both Iran and the United States often justify “the abuse” of their governments by pointing to each other’s wrongdoing. “Many Americans have a hard time owning up to the abuses of their own government,” Fattal said.
“It’s a downward cycle,” he said. “It’s this logic that kept me in prison for 26 months.”
The Islamic Republic asserted that the hikers were spies for the United States, but they were always highly critical of the American system before their imprisonment and remain so today.
Bauer also said outright that the two men and their female companion, Sarah Shourd, were simply “hostages.”
“Our detainment was never about a hike. From the beginning, we were hostages.”
Shourd said her mental health declined in prison and she at times beat her fists against the cell wall until her hands were bloodied.
Their joint appearance last week in Alabama was the fourth time they have spoken in public since their release and their first appearance on a college campus.