Ahmadinejad Gets Nailed On Illegal Imprisonment Of 3 Americans

In Hypocrisy Abounds, Patick Disney fisks and fillets Ahmadinejad on the continued detaining of 3 Americans--Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal--who were taken prisoner by Iran on July 31, 2009.

Ahmandinejad has claimed that the fate of the 3 is not up to him, but rather is up to the courts to decide.

However, as Disney points out, the detention itself directly violates Iranian law:

But the three hikers have been held without charge for over 9 months, in direct violation of Article 32 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which guarantees that:

No person may be arrested except according to and in the manner laid down in the law. If someone is detained, the subject matter of the charge, with reasons (for bringing it), must immediately be communicated and explained in writing to the accused. Within at most 24 hours the file on the case and preliminary documentation must be referred to the competent legal authority. Legal procedures must be initiated as early as possible. Anyone infringing this principle will be punished in accordance with the law.

And Article 35, which says:

In all courts, both parties to the claim are entitled to select a lawyer for themselves. If they do not have the capacity to do this, the means of a lawyer being appointed to act for them must be made available to them.

To compound the issue, Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal are not the only one being mistreated in Iranian prisons:

There is no legal basis for the way these three hikers are currently being treated. Nor is there any legal basis for the treatment of Kian Tajbakhsh (jailed since July 9), Reza Taghavi (jailed in secret for 2 years), or Robert Levinson (missing since 2007)

Read the whole thing.

Unfortunately, the biggest question remains to be 'what is the Obama administration doing to bring Shourd, Bauer and Fattal home'?

Technorati Tag: Iran and Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.