Sec. Clinton: Don’t Forget All Wrongfully Held Jewish Prisoners
UPDAET: Sarah Shourd was released this week! Keep up the pressure on Iran to release the last two hikers.
Josh Fattal and his friends Shane and Sarah were arrested by Iran one year ago.
Remember Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Joshua Fattal? The three were arrested by Iranian authorities July 31, 2009, during what their friends and families describe as a hiking trip in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, which borders Iran. Tehran officials say the three crossed illegally into Iranian territory.
The three young Americans, all graduates of the University of California at Berkeley, are believed to be held in the Iranian capital, Tehran. They have had no contact with their families, and have not been granted their right to consular access.
Jonathan Pollard was convicted 25 years ago of passing on US secrets to Israel, an American ally, and was sentenced to life in prison. Pollards backers have proven his punishment did not fit the crime.
Elie Wiesel has launched a global campaign to free former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is on trial in Moscow for embezzlement and theft.
Alan is wrongfully imprisoned (undoubtedly along with hundreds of others) in Cuba for handing out cell phones.
Clinton makes plea for Cuban detainee Alan Gross
July 14, 2010
WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asked Jewish groups to press the case of Alan Gross, an American Jew imprisoned in Cuba.
Gross, 60, has been held since his Dec. 3 arrest for assisting the Cuban Jewish community to connect to the Internet. He was contracted to the U.S. Agency for International Development….
“Our government works every single day through every channel for his release and safe return home,” Clinton said. “But I am really making an appeal to the active Jewish community here in our country to join this cause.”
Ironically, it takes Sen. Clinton to wake up the Jewish community to the plight of there imprisoned Jews, and the opportunity to pursue the mitzvah of pidyon shevuim, for which it is permissible to break the Sabbath.
Undoubtedly there are more Jewish prisoners – may they all be released soon.
Posted on September 15, 2010, in Israel, Judaism, News and politics and tagged jewish prisoners. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Rabbi Yonah's Blogshul 
Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a criminal like Bernard Madoff, the self-confessed author of the biggest financial swindle in history, was sentenced to the maximum 150 years behind bars for what his judge called an “extraordinarily evil” fraud that shook the nation’s faith in its financial and legal systems and took “a staggering toll” on rich and poor alike.
Goldman Sachs with the zionists will be next
in a court trial, witnesses sit neither on the bench with the gavel, nor on the jury. neither do they prosecute or defend, but offer testimony, as free from bias as possible. Maryja from Poland, you seem to be among those who wish to play judge, jury, and executioner. who are you to say if any of the mentioned parties are guilty or innocent?
I would like to know: why should it matter whether the prisoners are Jewish or not? Is a Jewish life worth saving more than the life of someone who is not Jewish?
I think we are only morally responsible to do what is within our effect. We are much more responsible for the crimes the USA and Israel commit against Arabs and others around the world than we are for the crimes of Iran or Venezuela, since we can do much more to stop US-Israeli crimes and share in the responsibility for them. When we speak about others, like when the Nazis criticized Stalin for starving all those people in Ukraine they may have been correct in their facts but we understand why they were hypocrites. When Americans and Israelis criticize Iranian crimes we can see why there is hypocrisy in their criticism as well.