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August 5, 2009
Iran Questions Detained U.S. Hikers
By SAM DAG IIER aud SHARON OTfl'ERMAN
BAGHDAD — Iran said Tuesday that it was questioning three young Americans arrested last week while
hiking near the country's border with Iraq and has charged them with illegal entry into the country, Iranian
state television reported.
“They are definitely A mericans,” Iraj Hassanzadeh, a security official in Iran's western Kurdistan region,
told Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam television, Reuters reported. “They were detained four days ago. We
don't know whether they are tourists or not. We are questioning them.”
The three were arrested in the western Iranian district of Marivan, at a border point known as
Malakh-Khur, Iran's state-funded Press TV station reported, adding that they were traveling on Syrian and
Iraqi visas and were therefore not legally permitted to cross the border.
Kurdish authorities in Iraq have identified the Americans as Shane Michael Bauer, of Emeryville, Calif.;
Joshua Felix Fattal, of Cottage Grove, Ore.; and Sarah Emily Shourd, of Oakland, Calif. Kurdish officials
said they were students, two of whom were studying Arabic in Damascus, Syria. Mr. Bauer and Ms. Shourd
have also worked as freelance journalists, most recently in the Middle East.
Swiss diplomats representing American interests in Iran said Monday they were trying to confirm the
detentions with the Iranian Foreign Ministry and had requested consular access to the detainees, said Lars
Knuchel, the head of public information for the Foreign Ministry in Bern, Switzerland. Iran and the United
States have not had formal diplomatic relations since the American hostage crisis of 1979.
“Obviously, we are concerned,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters on Monday,
adding that the United States still did not have confirmation that Iran was holding the three Americans.
“We want this matter brought to a resolution as soon as possible, and we call on the Iranian government to
help us determine the whereabouts of the three missing Americans and return them as quickly as possible.”
Writing on the Web site Brave New Traveler, Ms. Shourd, 30, described herself as a “teacher-activist-writer
from California currently based in the Middle East. She loves fresh broccoli, Zap atistas and anyone who can
change her mind.”
A 2003 graduate of the University of California at Berkeley , she wrote an article for the site in 2008 about a
family of Iraqi refugees in Aden, Yemen. More recently, in February, she wrote an article for a Web site
called New America Media from Damascus.
Mr. Bauer, 27, who is Ms. Shourd's boyfriend, describes himself as a freelance journalist and photographer
on his Web site . He has traveled widely, and most recently wrote an article from Baghdad for the June issue
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Iran Questions Detaircd U.S. Hikers - NYTimes ,com http://www .i 'tlnes .conil2OO9/O8/O5/wor1d /nddd1eeast /O5hlkers ,1tn1?sq— , . ,
of The Nation magazine on the Iraqi Special Operations Forces. A Minnesota native, he graduated with
honors from Berkeley in 2007 with a degree in peace and conflict studies and won an award for his
photographs of Darfur, Sudan, the university said in a statement .
Sandy Close, the executive director of Pacific News Service, the parent company of New America Media,
said Mr. Bauer left for the Middle East in the fall of 2008 and had since contributed a dozen stories to the
service. He was based in Damascus, she said, and last contacted the service on July 27, saying he planned to
spend a week in Kurdistan and file an article about the Kurdish elections.
Mr. Fattal, 27, also attended Berkeley and was working and residing until eight months ago at a sustainable
living research center in Cottage Grove. He was raised in Elkins Park, Pa., where his parents still live.
The three Americans were arrested by Iranian border guards on Friday afternoon after hiking into Iranian
territory. The Kurdistan regional government's adviser on foreign relations, Falah Mustafa, said the
authorities would seek a second meeting on Monday with Iran's consul general in the region's capital, Erbil,
to discuss the case. Mr. Mustafa said the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad was approaching the Iranian
Embassy.
A fourth American who was with the group when it first entered the region from the Turkish border on
Wednesday was identified as Shon Gabriel Meckfessel, 36, a native of California. Mr. Meckfessel had a cold,
however, and decided not to join his companions on their trek.
Mr. Meckfessel, a writer and graduate student in linguistics at the University of Washington , is now
believed to be at the United States Embassy in Baghdad. The head of the Iranian Parliament's foreign policy
committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, confirmed the arrest of the Americans on Sunday, according to Press TV,
a station owned by the Iranian government.
Another Iranian state-owned television station said on Saturday that the Americans had been arrested for
illegal entry.
Kurdish officials said the group had camped out Thursday night at the border. Their tents, blankets and
other belongings, including notebooks and a bottle of whiskey, were found Friday at the campsite.
Sam Dagher reported from Baghdad, and Sharon Otterman from New York. Alan Cowell contributed
reporting from London.
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