{"id":775,"date":"2015-06-17T15:25:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T15:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=775"},"modified":"2015-06-17T15:25:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T15:25:49","slug":"congress-asks-iran-to-release-flints-amir-hekmati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=775","title":{"rendered":"Congress asks Iran to release Flint&#8217;s Amir Hekmati"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/photo\/2011\/a\/amir-hekmati-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amir Hekmati<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">06-16-2015 &#8211; By Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press &#8211; WASHINGTON \u2013<\/span> The U.S. House voted unanimously Monday for a resolution urging Iran to release a Flint man held in captivity for more than three years and two other Americans as well.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more-->The resolution, introduced by U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, mirrors one already passed in the Senate. While it doesn&#8217;t carry the force of law, Kildee and others hope it puts pressure on Iran \u2014 engaged in nuclear talks with the Obama administration \u2014 to release the men.<br \/>\nAmir Hekmati, a former Marine who was born in the U.S., was arrested while in Iran visiting relatives in 2011. Initially charged as a spy, he was originally sentenced to life in prison, though it was later reduced to 10 years.<br \/>\nHekmati and his family have denied the charges and it is hoped that that the resolution \u2014 a sense of Congress asking for the release of the men \u2014 will put pressure on Iran as it negotiates a lifting of western economic sanctions in exchange for scaling back its nuclear program<br \/>\n&#8220;Today Congress spoke with one voice to tell Iran that it cannot continue to hold American political prisoners like Amir Hekmati if they are serious about reengaging the global community,&#8221; Kildee said. It passed 391-0.<br \/>\nThe resolution also calls on Iran to release a Christian pastor, Saeed Abedini of Idaho and Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post correspondent, who also have been imprisoned. It also calls for the Iranian government to provide information about the fate of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007.<br \/>\nU.S. Rep. Ed Royce R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the continued detention of the three Americans &#8220;underscores the complete lack of justice \u2014 really, the brutal treatment \u2014 they have faced in Iran.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;As we approach the deadline for negotiations on a nuclear agreement with Iran, we have to ask \u2014 if top Iranian officials can&#8217;t be counted on to release these wrongfully jailed Americans, how can they be counted on to honor the commitments they make at the negotiating table?&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nThe Obama administration also called for the men to be released though it has said their status should not be part of the nuclear talks.<br \/>\nContact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>06-16-2015 &#8211; By Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press &#8211; WASHINGTON \u2013 The U.S. House voted unanimously Monday for a resolution urging Iran to release a Flint man held in captivity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[117],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-amir-hekmati"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}