American Baquer Namazi, detained in Iran, needs surgery "within a week" to avoid fatal stroke
CBSN
Lawyers for an ailing, elderly Iranian-American who has been detained by Iran since 2016 are appealing to the United Nations for immediate intervention to evacuate him for lifesaving emergency surgery.
In a letter addressed to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health within the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights office and obtained by CBS News, 84-year-old Baquer Namazi's U.S.-based lawyers wrote Monday that he requires "immediate surgery for a 95–97% blockage in one of his internal carotid arteries — the pair of main arteries that supply blood to the brain."
Namazi's lawyer, Jared Genser, told reporters on Monday that Namazi's family only learned of his worsening arterial blockage in the past few days. "The situation for Baquer is dire. He requires surgery within the next 7-10 days," Genser said.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.