Scores of prominent international figures on Wednesday called on Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release three US hikers who have been held in detention for more than four months.
"The three hikers have been held for four months without charge and without contact with their families, despite your own undertaking more than two months ago to ask the Iranian judiciary to expedite the case and show 'maximum leniency,'" read a copy of a petition by 79 authors, addressed to Ahmadinejad.
"To continue to detain them without due process raises grave concerns that Iran is holding these three young Americans for political purposes and calls into question Iran's stated commitment to the rule of law," it added.
Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 were arrested July 31 after straying into Iranian territory during a hiking trip in Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Held at Tehran's Evin prison in separate cells and with few visits allowed, the trio faces espionage charges, despite denials from friends and relatives that they are spies and US insistence that they be released.
"We appeal to you to intervene with the judicial authorities so that they may return to their families immediately and resume their lives," said the petition which was sent to Iran's mission to the United Nations with a request to forward it to Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
Signatories include prominent Palestinian MP Hanan Ashrawi, former Middle East hostage Terry Anderson, anti-war activist Medea Benjamin, British billionaire Richard Branson, US actress Mia Farrow, US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
