Ongoing Hostage Crisis in Iran - a Lifeline to Finding Prisoners Makes Its Way through Senate

In a small but positive step towards a victory for the good guys, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning approved S. Res. 545, calling attention to the hostage crisis in Iran, and along with the mirror resolution which had already passed through the House, authorizing the creation of a taskforce that would share information related to current hostages and unjustly detained Americans with its counterparts from around the world. Major kudos to Sen. Ted Cruz for taking an initiative in the Senate on this resolution, and to Sen. Leahy and Booker for co-sponsorship.

Iran is engaging in a pattern of behavior that would surely fall under criminal RICO charges in the United States: detaining or arresting US citizens and permanent residents, many of them dual citizens or on assignments for the US government, holding them on trumped up charges, and demanding financial or political ransoms for their release. These individuals are held in terrible conditions, with limited to no access to medical care,  and in the past have also been beaten and tortured while in prison. Mr. Nizar Zakka, for instance has survived multiple hunger strikes, and is in dire need of dental care.

 In cases like that of the US former FBI officer Bob Levinson, arrested by the IRGC in Kish Island over 10 years ago where he was on a mission run by CIA, years have passed since any proof of life has been demonstrated, while Iran continues to be treated as a legitimate partner for investments by the international community.

Creating a law that would facilitate information sharing between families and their representatives, and anyone else looking to locate Americans who have disappeared, or who are known to be held by such regimes as Iran, but with no access to basic humanitarian needs would make the effort to rescue US citizens a much needed and visible priority for the government and private investigators alike. It would also give hope for those serving this country in some of the most dangerous places around the world that if anything should happen to them, there would be mechanisms for doing everything possible to locate them no matter what the political climate of that time looks like. The resolution would empower mid-level officials and private parties not beholden to the ebb and flow of current events and their effect on the official pronouncements to quietly work with their counterparts in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere to share valuable knowledge as to whereabouts of the disappeared individuals.

I hope that it clears Senate and is signed into law by President Trump as soon as possible. In the meantime, please call your Senators and ask them to support this measure once it comes to a vote, and please help by bringing attention to the fates of 10 Americans currently held helpless in Iran, several US citizens captured in North Korea, the Evangelical pastor in Turkey, and possibly a number of others incommunicado around the world. International pressure on these countries does work, as we have seen time and time again, when individuals facing life in prison or death penalty were reluctantly released after mass demonstrations in the US, and repeated pressure by US officials.