Freed hikers: Captive because of America
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Bauer and Fattal blast Iran's "brutality" after returning to the United States
- NEW: Their espionage trial was a "total sham," Bauer says
- NEW: Shourd says the screams of prisoners "will always be with me"
- The two hikers arrived in the U.S. after their release Wednesday
New York (CNN) -- Safely back on American soil, freed Americans Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer on Sunday recounted their two years in "a world of lies and false hope" behind the walls of an Iranian prison.
Wearing green shirts and big smiles, Bauer and Fattal landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport four days after their release by Iranian authorities. In a news conference following their arrival, they described long days held in isolation, the hours punctuated by the screams of other inmates, and their "total sham" of a trial.
"Releasing us is a good gesture, and no positive step should go unnoticed," Fattal told reporters Sunday afternoon. "We applaud the Iranian authorities for finally making the right decision regarding our case. But we want to be clear that they do not deserve undue credit for ending what they had no right and no justification to start in the first place."
Fattal, Bauer and Bauer's now-fiancee, Sarah Shourd, were arrested after straying across the unmarked border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran in July 2009. Shourd was released in 2010, but Bauer and Fattal were freed only Wednesday, after 781 days in captivity and a trial for espionage that Bauer said was based on "ridiculous lies."
"Sarah, Josh and I have experienced a taste of the Iranian regime's brutality. We have been held in almost total isolation from the world and everything we love, stripped of our rights and freedom," Bauer said.
He urged Iran to release all political prisoners immediately, telling reporters, "There are people in Iran who have been imprisoned for years for simply attending a protest, for writing a pro-democracy blog or for worshiping an unpopular faith."
But he also criticized the treatment of prisoners held in U.S. facilities, such as the military's prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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