It is almost a year since Iran detained my friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd (and their friend Josh).

It demonstrates just how empty the Iranian government’s claim to defend Palestinian rights really is.

Shane and Sarah – who were living in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp at the time – have done more for Palestinians and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that pretty much every Arab and Iranian I know.

What is depressing is that the Iranians must know this, and yet still detain them.

Part of the blame must also lie with the official “Free The Hikers” campaign, that for whatever reasons has chosen not to highlight Sarah and Shane’s politics. Despite doing fantastic work in drumming up domestic US support, it has taken too long to start trickling in information about their work.

Portraying them as hikers lost in the wrong part of the Middle East does not help anyone understand who they are. When I first saw the story in The Times last year, I instantly assumed they were spies. Who wouldn’t?

However, that same afternoon I got a call from a friend in Syria who said it was Shane and Sarah. After my initial panic I thought that as soon as it became clear to the public who these guys were they would be released.

But nobody was talking about their work. I’m still not sure why, but their families wanted to take their politics out of the equation. Unfortunately when it comes to the Middle East that doesn’t work. Politics is paramount and people fall on either side of the line: pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. Sure, there are more nuanced ways of saying it, but that’s the fundamental distinction. If you’re American and don’t have the evidence to prove it, the assumption is you’re of the latter category. Fair enough, I say, Americans (and Brits) have done enough to shaft the Middle East many times over to warrant immediate suspicion.

The difference was that in this case, there was – and still is – the evidence to demonstrate very clearly that these guys are not US/Israeli spies and have spent their lives campaigning for justice in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places besides.

It has been a frustrating year for many of Sarah and Shane’s friends (well, at least the ones that I know) who have felt that they haven’t been able to talk about their politics for fear of jeopardising the official campaign. However, following a visit by the mothers of Sarah, Shane and Josh to Iran in May, Shane asked explicitly that we focus on their work for justice in the Middle East.

So that’s what we’re doing now. Along with a bunch of their friends, we’ve released a website with quotes and links to their work. Please visit it and pass it on.

Iran needs to realise that if it really cares about the rights of Palestinians it should release Shane, Sarah and Josh.

www.FreeOurFriends.eu

Today’s truck bomb in Baghdad has killed well over a hundred people.

In our media, it becomes just another bomb attack in Iraq – a conflict that bores us these days. Well, to jog your memory, here’s a list of major bomb attacks in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein:

• Aug. 19, 2003 – A truck bomb wrecks U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
• Aug. 29, 2003 – A car bomb kills at least 83 people, including top Shi’ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.
• Feb. 1, 2004 – 117 people are killed when two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Arbil at the offices of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
• Feb. 10, 2004 – Suicide car bomb rips through a police station in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killing 53.
• Feb. 11, 2004 – Suicide car bomb explodes at an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad, killing 47.
• March 2, 2004 – 171 people are killed in twin attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala.
• Dec. 19, 2004 – A suicide car bomb blast in Najaf, 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, kills 52 and wounds 140.
• Feb. 28, 2005 – A suicide car bomb attack in Hilla, south of Baghdad, kills 125 people and wounds 130. It was postwar Iraq’s worst single blast.
• July 16, 2005 – A suicide bomber in a fuel truck near a Shi’ite mosque in the town of Mussayib, near Kerbala, kills 98.
• Sept. 14, 2005 – A suicide bomber kills 114 people and wounds 156 in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad.
• Sept. 29, 2005 – 98 people are killed in three coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shi’ite and Sunni town of Balad.
• Nov. 18, 2005 – At least 74 people are killed and 150 wounded when suicide bombers blow themselves up inside two Shi’ite mosques in Khanaqin.
• Jan. 5, 2006 – Two suicide bombers kill over 120 people and wound more than 200 in the cities of Kerbala and Ramadi. Fifty-three were killed and 148 wounded in Kerbala and 70 killed and 65 wounded in Ramadi.
• July 1, 2006 – A car bomb attack at a crowded market in Sadr city, a Shi’ite district of eastern Baghdad, kills 62 and wounds 114. The Supporters of the Sunni People, a previously unknown Iraqi Sunni Muslim group claim responsibility.
• July 18, 2006 – Fifty-nine people are killed by a suicide bomb in Kufa, near Najaf, in an attack claimed by al Qaeda.
• Aug. 10, 2006 – Thirty-five people are killed and 90 injured by bomb blasts near the Imam Ali shrine in southern city of Najaf. The Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions) group claims responsibility.
• Nov. 23, 2006 – Six car bombs in different parts of the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad kill 202 people and wound 250.
• Dec. 12, 2006 – A suicide bomber kills 70 people and wounds at least 236 in Tayran Square, in central Baghdad after luring a crowd of labourers to his vehicle with promises of work.
• Jan. 16, 2007 – A car bomb and suicide bomber strike the Mustansiriya University in central Baghdad killing at least 70 people and wounding 180.
• Jan. 22, 2007 – A double car bombing at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, a busy commercial area in central Baghdad, kills 88 people and wounds 160.
• Feb. 1, 2007 – Two suicide bombers blow themselves up at a crowded market in Shi’ite town of Hilla, killing 61 people and wounding 150.
• Feb. 3, 2007 – Truck bomb kills 105 people and wounds 225 in a busy market in central Baghdad.