Released hiker describes friends' abuse in Iranian prison

Shane Bauer, left, and Josh Fattal have been detained in Iran since their arrest during a 2009 hiking trip near the Iranian border.Sarah Shourd says Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were abusedThey were beaten and pushed down stairs, she saysThe three hikers were arrested in July 2009 when they wandered into IranShourd was released last year but the two men remain jailed

(CNN) -- Iranian prison guards abused and assaulted two U.S. hikers who have been detained in the Islamic Republic since 2009, according to their friend Sarah Shourd, who was released last year.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Shourd described the abuse that Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer experienced before Shourd was released on $500,000 bail in September, according to a statement released by the families Thursday.

A guard at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison was furious that Fattal took extra food and pushed him down the stairs, Shourd said. The guard repeatedly threw Bauer against a wall of his cell until his head began bleeding.

She said the three had feared that they would be executed soon after they were arrested, when a guard began cocking his gun.

The two men are allowed limited communication these days, and their families have no way of knowing their condition.

"My worst fear is that they're not safe," Shourd said. "They don't have consular access, they're not allowed to see their lawyer, and we fear the worst."

In July 2009, Shourd, 32, Fattal, 29, and Bauer, 28, were hiking in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish area along the border with Iran when they were arrested by Iranian police. Shourd said they accidentally strayed across the border. Iranian authorities say the three crossed into Iran illegally.

Twice, they feared for their lives as guards loaded them into a vehicle to a mysterious location and cocked their weapons, Shourd said. Terrified, they held hands, cried out and begged for their lives.

Even though Shourd is free, she, along with the families of Fattal and Bauer, remains focused on helping her friends to freedom. Shourd and the families have begun fasting in an effort to show their solidarity and support for the imprisoned men.

Fattal and Bauer started their own hunger strike when they were no longer allowed to receive family letters. They have been allowed only three brief phone calls to their families; the most recent was May 22.

Fattal and Bauer were supposed to attend a trial hearing May 11 but never showed. Their absence has not been explained by Iranian officials.

"We are shocked and angry at the way Shane and Josh are being treated and the terrible incidents that Sarah has told us about only heighten our grave concern for their physical and mental welfare," said the family statement.

"The people who are holding Shane and Josh are breaking Iran's laws ... and behaving shamefully. This nightmare must end and Shane and Josh must be released."

CNN

CBS reporter Lara Logan describes sexual attacks

WASHINGTON — Two months after a brutal attack during the protests in Cairo, CBS reporter Lara Logan says "there was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying." And despite the horrific ordeal, Logan plans to return to reporting in trouble spots.

 Journalist Lara Logan said she hopes her story will help other victims of sexual assault.

"I am so much stronger," she says in a release from CBS News, marking her first public statements since the repeated sexual attacks by a mob in Cairo. Logan, who has returned to work, will tell her story on CBS' 60 Minutes this Sunday.

She hopes her story will help others who have been sexually assaulted, especially other female journalists.

On Feb. 11, Logan was in Cairo covering the city's celebration of the regime change in Egypt. She was conducting interviews in Tahrir Square when she became separated from her crew and was sexually and physically assaulted by a mob.

"I thought not only am I going to die, but it's going to be just a torturous death that's going to go on forever," Logan said. In an interview with The New York Times, she said her clothes were "torn to pieces," and that "for an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands."

A group of Egyptian women and soldiers rescued her.

Logan has spent much time covering conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan, which are often hostile environments for Western women.

"Lara Logan is an extremely talented, courageous journalist," says Alicia Shepard, an ombudsman at NPR. "Her gender should have nothing to do with whether she should cover a war. It should be up to Lara Logan."

"Covering war, conflict and political upheaval all entails possible physical danger, and we have to be more careful," says Hun Shik Kim, who covered Iraq and now teaches at the University of Colorado. "We used to be considered neutral observers, but the level of hostility toward foreign journalists is quite high."

Logan said she does not intend to give any more interviews about the attack.

"I don't want this to define me," she told the Times.

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