Families Fight for Hikers Held in Iran

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

"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."