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Report: Iran Sentences U.S. Man to Death for Alleged Spying

StillBallin75 said:
Dude, Iran accuses a couple of twenty-something-year-old hikers of being American spies. Their credibility is shot.
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How do you know they are not spies?How many Americans on a regular basis go "Hey! I feel likely going to a war torn country that has terrorists in it that are trying to kill Americans because I want to go hiking along the border of a country that is extremely hostile to Americans"? That make as much as sense as a black man knowingly going to a KKK rally deep in the woods all by himself unarmed in the middle of the night and with no cell phone. There are a million other places on the planet to go hiking at.
 
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jamesrage said:
How do you know they are not spies?How many Americans on a regular basis go "Hey! I feel likely going to a war torn country that has terrorists in it that are trying to kill Americans because I want to go hiking along the border of a country that is extremely hostile to Americans"? That make as much as sense as a black man knowingly going to a KKK rally deep in the woods all by himself unarmed in the middle of the night and with no cell phone. There are a million other places on the planet to go hiking at.
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Self endangerment - mid being a nuisance.

When our citizens go to other countries and flount the borders and push button I think that's all it comes down to - and I'm less than concerned. It's not like they didn't know they were poking at a sleep pitbull.
 
donsutherland1 said:
We don't know if the alleged confession was extracted by coercion e.g., inhuman treatment, even torture. Iran has well-documented abuses of human rights (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.), so such coercion cannot be discounted.
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Hold on there buddy. We, the USA, have a documented stranglehold on torture and it's legal. So is inhuman treatment, coercion, a la AbuGrabass and Gitmo. The statements made as a result of this torture are admissable in Court. GITMO. Military Tribunals. Are you suggesting our sacred rule of law doesn't apply to Iran?
 
donsutherland1 said:
We don't know if the alleged confession was extracted by coercion e.g., inhuman treatment, even torture. Iran has well-documented abuses of human rights (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.), so such coercion cannot be discounted.
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I think I was fairly clear that torture may have been used. Of course, we won't ever know for sure. Even if he is released and returns, he may not show any external signs of torture, hence we'd only have his word for it. I'd probably stick my neck out and say that he is more than likely to have been interrogated using fairly severe methods.
 
donsutherland1 said:
This is an unfortunate incident. It was also wholly avoidable. Mr. Hekmati should never have been in Iran. The State Department has been warning for years about travel to Iran. A current warning is posted: Iran. Mr. Hekmati chose to ignore the warnings. He did so even as any rational person would understand that an American's traveling in Iran could be problematic and one with a military background would face even higher odds of being apprehended or worse.

Hopefully, the U.S. and other countries can press Iran to avoid an "execution" at a minimum and hopefully he will be released early. In addition, even if Mr. Hekmati is ultimately released, he should be publicly rebuked for having ignored the travel warnings. Unfortunately, because some people deliberately ignore the travel warnings, it might be helpful for there to be a public face to the warnings. Maybe, if some of those individuals saw that ignoring the warnings can have real consequences, they would take a more prudent course.
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I agree with your statement, except the bolded portion. To publicly rebuke a man who has broken no US laws would just be pandering to Iran.
 
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