Families Fight for Hikers Held in Iran

Three U.C. Berkley Graduates Have Been Detained for 54 Days, But Families Hold Out Hope

(AP)  The families of the three American hikers detained in Iran said Tuesday they are holding out hope that the Iranian president will bring good news - or more - with him when he visits the United Nations this week.

Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd have been held for 52 days since they apparently strayed into Iran while hiking in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region in July. Their case has become the latest source of friction between the U.S. and Iran.

Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, told The Associated Press that she and the other families, who are in daily touch with each other, have not received any information on their children other than that they're being held somewhere in Iran.

(See the families' Web site calling for the hikers to be released.)

She said she hopes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will announce their release or at least provide some information about them on Wednesday when he speaks at the General Assembly in New York. Earlier Tuesday, Fattal's brother Alex said he and his mother hope Ahmadinejad will bring the trio with him.

Ahmadinejad told The Associated Press Tuesday evening that the Americans broke the law. Nevertheless, Ahmadinejad says he will ask the judiciary to treat the case with what he called "maximum lenience."

"We have really got no indication about any direction that this might go," Hickey said in interview at her rural home near Pine City in eastern Minnesota, about a mile from the Wisconsin border. "Knowing our children and knowing they were on a hiking trip and they weren't doing anything other than camping, we're hoping this will come to a quick end. It's been real difficult not to be able to talk to him and hear his voice."

The U.S. government has no diplomatic relations with Iran and has been working with the Swiss government to try to obtain information. State Department spokeswoman Megan Mattson said Tuesday the department had no indication Ahmadinejad would bring the three Americans with him.

U.S. officials and authorities in Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region say the backpackers crossed the poorly marked border by mistake while visiting a scenic part of Iraq on July 31. Iran's state television has said they were arrested after disregarding border guards' warnings.

Bauer, 27, a freelance journalist, spent his first 14 years in Onamia, Minn. before moving to San Leandro, Calif. to live with his father.

Hickey, 49, said her son expressed an interest in the wider world even as a young child, and as he grew older became particularly interested in the Middle East. He spoke fluent Arabic, and for the last year had been living in Damascus, Syria with Shourd, 31, his girlfriend of several years.

Fattal, 27, went to visit Bauer and Shourd, who teaches English, after traveling overseas on a teaching fellowship with the International Honors Program. All three are graduates of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hickey said she never worried much about her son as he traveled in the Mideast and other global hot spots. "He's a seasoned traveler, and he's always very careful," said Hickey, who lives with her husband on a farm with 19 Alaskan huskies.

She spent time with her son in Yemen a few years ago and had planned to visit him in Damascus later this year. When they last spoke, about a week before he went to hike in Kurdistan, he even raised the possibility that mother and son might return to the scenic wilderness area.

The families have stressed that the three were merely hiking in Kurdistan, and Hickey said her son was not there as a journalist. Hickey said she's had many sleepless nights and has been frustrated by her lack of options. On her dining room table, next several pictures of her son, she set up cups for drinking tea - a habit she shares with her son. She won't use them until the day he comes home.

"Because I believe in what he does, I would not try to control what he does in the future," Hickey said. "But I want him home for a few days."

[rwsmith29456]

What possible reason could Iran have for holding them except to embarass the U.S. by demonstrating that they can. I'm sure that will help them gain world respect. They'll probable claim that they are spies.

[storiccow]

' .. many many handfuls of dirt, each handful a handful of plants and animals both microscopic and endlessly big .. with a shopping cart of so many handfuls of drifting dirts, with a lunch bowl of so many handfuls of drifting dirts .. with so many handfuls of dirts and all the handfuls of blooms they recycle, it's difficult to go hungry, but most find a way when and where they choose .. '


' .. her husband said i am allowed to covet him, just that i have to do it publically and obviously and from at least a short distance, her great great granddaughter, however, wanted not even any thoughts of herself being coveted .. '


' .. i'd a strikingly sharp and clear and bright and colorful image of eternity when i was really little, like 3 feet and less tall, she was short and black and wearing dull dim underwear in a nudist camp .. usually in my dreams she was made out of endless webs of busy busy heavily heavily populated swamp muck, but that image of her was so strikingly sparce and lonely and quiet and empty and sullen, despite everyones exhuberance, that it felt as though it was an unnatural and contrived image from some time and some place seperate and far removed .. '


' .. most slum labor camps are intoxicatingly sexy, most pristine ones are the same .. but i am so used to those sexy ones, that, when i'm in a labor camp mood, i feel myself drawn like as if there is a hand cupping my hearts and a fleet of little tiny folk weighing down my legs compelling my sense of desperation to find one that is not sexy and to find it soon .. sometimes those feelings make me feel as if maybe i'm being violated in someway i don't want, but i try to dismiss those feelings and forgive them whether they are true or not, for most are drawn to the sexy camps to the extent that the others are interminably interminably desperate for attention .. '


' .. todays animal trainers are students of all ages what get all enthusiastic doing near to the animals the things the animals do .. todays dressed diligent sober celibate folk enjoy doing most things most time the lazy naked lusty dopey way .. todays congresses are comprised of uncountable flags and languqges and currencys and crafts and casseroles and blooms and biscuits and other assorted jargons and jingles danced .. the world was more pretty in the past and more delightful .. it's been ruined for generations future .. putting it back is a never ending joy .. and the war babys and their butts never stop begging to be made over .. again and again and again .. we don't need more trail crossing busses and more cure theorys and more beds and baths, we need more war babys butts into hurting war baby butts and less into being hurt .. '


' .. i made the soup a little extra big today, a few extra miniature vegetables from my kitchen counter garden .. extra spice from there too .. some poor nudist kids with no breakfast growing on their limbs and exo-organs and such stopped by .. they ate from my soup and their butts blessed my lips with a kiss .. but they were the butt kisses i'm allergic to, they warned me so before, and i let them anyway .. now i'm in a sick bed my own for a few hours more .. i like that alot .. whole hours feeling so so sexy and loved .. '


' .. i like it how every street corner they make me pay .. i like it how they make everyone in the world pay .. i especially like it how they especially make all the lazy nake lusty dopey kids and old folk and sick and injured folk and other prostitutes and pedophiles and **** and fats and canibals pay .. i could never make a war baby's butt pay .. i could never make anybody's butt pay .. but some still do .. and there is endless peace because of them .. '


' .. met some to detain me til i dressed, and some til i refused .. some till i sweated, some til refused .. some til i bled, some til refused .. some til i wept, some til i refused .. some til i got brilliant, some til i got bland .. some til i got wealthy, some til i got poor .. some delayed me for my silence, and some for my noise .. some for my vegetables, and some for my vegetables .. some for my detentions and delays and some for my insecurities .. most just wanted me to wallow in their crap buffets until i felt generous and loyal and inspired .. '

[storiccow]

' .. long after the infants and toddlers with the wagons full of mushrooms and oatmeals and green beans had turned to sleeves of mushrooms and oatmeals and green beans, long after the little old folk stopped playing zero resistance tai chi aikido yogaerobic inkblot sport and puzzle and game and gallery, long after the musician and journalist kids quit playing med math you are here map song dance skit kit art craft, long after the volunteer labor transients at the homeless shelters quit playing get well feed world and get sick tax world, long after the protitutes quit playing free lunch bus toy bloom basket bouquet garden jargon jingle, long after creatures and other folk all over quit playing hike naked dance dressed and hike dressed dance naked and hike naked dance naked and hike dressed dance dressed, long after the stars burned out and the weeds and other molecules and microbes and sub atomic toons quit flickering and oscillating, long after eternal cosmic war baby oceans of endless storyboards with the relentless spank me fetishes and spank you fetishes and the infinite lines resolution with infinite fast refresh and infinite divergence with infinite wishes true stopped wishing and dreaming .. long after had passed all the eternitys what would ever pass eternal times over again and again each moment .. long after the last cheer for first aid on the trail: the non-consensual non-pornographic multi quadrillion dollar nuke bio chemo stealth ray school tax job war dare shock awe war date rape terror and drug war chore exercise dollar war death tax dress strip cuff cage rough stuff freak famine spank nuke stick stone rant rave cop troop rage slave to bless and keep and save and liberate all the dear civilians continued to thrive and provide peace and prosperity and safety and security for each and for all for all of time .. it was very touching and special and wonderful and placid and nice .. and i liked it alot .. '

[dwilson59]

OK let me see if I can help. Over thier is Iran they hate the US stay 25 miles away.

[jgg00009]

Note to all you adventurers:
Do NOT go hiking on the North/South Korean border, or the Iran/Iraq border. Do so at your own risk. We have lovely national parks right HERE where you can go hiking.

[kevjustice]

It is hard to have sympathy for people who have contributed significantly to creating their own problem.

[ubrew12]

I'm surprised people like you have the adventurism to get out of bed in the morning.

[ubrew12]

nature doesn't respect borders. True lovers of nature are the same. But you guys can keep watching your television and letting the world pass you by if it makes you feel important.