An occasional writer's journal

Reports that Iraq has joined international demands for Iran to release the three US hikers it has held without charge since July 31 is a welcome sign that Baghdad is beginning to shoulder a share of the responsibility.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also hinted that the Americans’ continued detention might be more of an embarrassment than a bargaining chip as he focuses on building economic ties with neighbours and allies in the light of stalled negotiations with UN partners over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Shane Bauer

Speaking in Brasilia during his mini-tour of South America, Ahmadinejad said it was for Iran’s  judiciary to determine the hikers’ fate following suggestions a fortnight earlier that they could face charges of espionage. “We hope the sanction will not be too heavy,” he added. Campaigners might conclude that the president is trying to distance himself from the case and that a prompt release would be in the best interests of all.

Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were reportedly hiking in the area of a scenic waterfall in northern Iraq when they allegedly crossed the Iranian border and were promptly arrested and taken into custody in Tehran.

Their last message was via a mobile phone call from Bauer to Shon Meckfessel, a fourth backpacker who had been taken ill and stayed behind at their hotel, to say the three had been “surrounded by armed men”. Camping equipment and two backpacks apparently belonging to the Americans were reportedly later found in the area, indicating a hasty departure.

The exact location of the discovery was not revealed but The Daily Telegraph published an astonishing report two weeks later in which a Kurdish official said that far from having accidentally wandered into Iran, the trio had been “snatched” by Iranian agents who had crossed into Iraq.

Sarah Shourd

“This was not a case of the Americans straying into Iran,” Farhad Lohoni was quoted as saying. ‘They were targeted and captured by a group that came over from Iran, ignoring Iraq’s sovereignty.  We know this and it means that Iran must have wanted to take Americans hostage at this sensitive time.”

The cross-border abduction of hostages to be used as bargaining chips is not an everyday occurance in the Middle East, but not uncommon. Gilad Shalit, the young Israeli army conscript who has been the focus of an epic prisoner exchange wrangle, was snatched from Israel on June 25, 2006, during a raid from the Gaza Strip by three Palestinian militant groups. As I write this entry, hopes of an imminent release appear to have been dashed over the terms of a deal with Hamas.

According to the Telegraph report, Lohoni said Kurdish security services had records of a phone call from a suspected Iranian agent said to have tipped off the IRGC (Iran’s Republican Guard) to the hikers’ presence in nearby Iraq. Significantly, the waterfall at Ahmed Awa that they had travelled to by taxi was “a three-hour hike” from the Iranian border, along a steep trail with minefields uncleared since the  Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s.

Little was heard of the hikers in the weeks that followed until a worrying report emerged that they had been transferred to Tehran’s  notorious Evin Prison. Consular contact was at first denied but eventually Swiss Embassy officials were granted access, and a second visit of 40 minutes in which the prisoners were supplied with clothing and presumably messages of support from the US. The hikers’ families said in a statement they appeared in “good physical shape”.

Josh Fattal

In early November, Tehran chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi announced that charges of espionage were being considered, pending a further “opinion”. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately called on Iran to show compassion and allow the hikers to return home, saying diplomatically that the trio had made a mistake in crossing the border. She said there was “no evidence” of espionage.

Accusations against the hikers have ranged from the bizarre to the fantastic, with Iranian officials linking them directly to the CIA. It might be significant to Tehran that the three are graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, especially as the Ahmadinejad regime has sought to blame the wave of opposition following the disputed June 12 presidential elections on the presence of “foreign agents”, particularly western academics and journalists.

Less than a week after the hikers’ arrests, Iran’s English language broadcasting service Press TV had amazingly tracked down a Kurdish tea shop owner willing to suggest that the three Americans he had met had been planning to enter Iran. He recalled that a woman, presumably Sarah Shourd, had been speaking in Syrian Arabic.

“The woman was not wearing Hijab and was fair-skinned; she said that she spoke Egyptian Arabic as well,” he said. “I asked them to sit down, but the woman said they were in a hurry. She said she was from Mahabad and that they wanted to go to Iran. I showed them the way to Iran and they left.”

The hikers had entered northern Iraq after visiting Turkey and Syria. They had valid Iraqi visas and had made no attempt to conceal their online identities: Bauer, a freelance photojournalist; Shourd, an English teacher; and Fattal, an environmentalist with an interest in overseas projects. However, it is easy to see how the presence of three educated Americans near the Iranian border might attract suspicion or even prove profitable. Moreover, if you accept the abduction theory, you might argue that Iraq had a duty of care to protect its border in an area frequented by foreign visitors.

Families and friends have held a series of vigils and prayers for the trio’s release. Their first website petition, organised via Twitter and Facebook, was sent last week to Iran’s emissary to the UN. The petition can be found at the Free The Hikers site and you are asked to add your digital signature. You can also “friend” Free The Hikers on Facebook or follow the campaign on Twitter via the hashtag #SSJ.

• Iran is holding another US citizen, academic Kian Tajbakhsh, who was arrested during the turmoil following the June 12 elections and has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for alleged involvement in opposition protests.

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