A story has just been put together that says that Sarah, Josh and Shane, the three American hikers being detained in Iran did not cross the border, but were kidnapped from Iraqi Kurdistan. This is the first time that the truth about the hikers is getting a viral media push through email and facebook. It is significant because it changes their status from prisoners who have committed a crime to hostages.

This is actually not really news.  The UK Daily Telegraph released the details in an article in August, 2009.  A local tribal leader saw the kidnappers crossing the border from the Iran side, and noted cell phone records of the call that alerted the kidnappers to the hikers presence. The article also notes that, at that moment, the tension between the US and the Iranian government was high because of US protests of the 2009 election in Iran.

So, why didn’t this information come out in the US before? Iran covered up this information and their official story was to allege that the hikers crossed the border and were going to be tried as spies.  Anyone that knows Sarah, Josh or Shane, is aware that this is complete B.S., but maybe this is the only way for Iran to save face keep them in Evin.  I am guessing here, but my sense is that there has been a tension between using official means to try and release the hikers and using the media to build public support.

I am still speculating when I suggest that nobody really knows WHY Iran is holding the hikers and this is responsible for creating this tension.  Is it because of the protests that the Daily Telegraph mentions? If so, why do they continue to hold them, wouldn’t this only strain the relations further? Is The Iranian government waiting for an opportunity for an exchange? (This came up in the media throughout the time that the hikers have been held. Most recently, it was  reported in February  that Ahmadinejad proposed a prisoner exchange and then, earlier this month, that Iranian officals said it is not in their practice to “exchange people”.) Is Ahmadinejad just looking for a way out that he can save face?

So because nobody knows why they are actually being held, since they are clearly not spies and clearly did not cross the border, it is completely unclear what the right tactics are to pursue their release.  As has been stated by the Free the Hikers campaign many times, this is a historically safe area.  It has only been within the last month that tensions between Iran and Kurdish rebels have begun heating up.  The border crossings of Iranian troops were distinct enough to be newsworthy. Outside magazine notes that Europeans and Americans regularly travel in this area and that at peak times, this trail does have significant use.  The article also notes that Iranian-US relations are at an all-time low due to “Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials and anti-Israel diatribes, the surging power of Iran’s anti-Western Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the regime’s suppression of the country’s pro-democracy movement”.

It seems that the few hateful American’s that post comments saying that they deserve their fate for being so stupid may be the only ones that have ever thought that their jailing makes any kind of sense.  And now, with the public release of this border information, not only can I send a big FU to those self-righteous people, but it is the final piece of a puzzle that points to the fact that is was not a stupid mistake that the hikers are paying for, but is instead an international hostage situation, and one that has been downplayed for too long.

But here’s the rub, and how the situation is turned upside-down version of  a simpler hostage situation.  The hikers “are the opposite of ugly Americans” (as Outside puts it). They can’t be held up as models of imperialism. Instead, they are warm and generous people wanting to bridge gaps between cultures and advocate freedom, information and education for everyone.  They are pro-Palestinian.  While it would certainly be a stretch (and an incorrect one at that) to say that they are supporters of Ahmadinejad’s, they are not even close to his worst enemies and  are even farther from being enemies of the Iranian people.

Because of these personal qualities and the consequential journalism, teaching and activism that they have done here in the Bay Area and internationally, I have hope that international allies in Europe and the Middle East will step up and ultimately mount enough public pressure to lead to their release.