By Farhad Pouladi

Source:

May 20, 2010

TEHRAN — The mothers of three US hikers held in Iran for 10 months amid spy accusations called for their release as a “humanitarian gesture” after an emotional reunion with their children on Thursday.

“We have requested their freedom but I don’t know what will happen,” Shane Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey, told reporters after the teary-eyed meeting in a Tehran hotel.

“Please, please let them go,” she pleaded. “It would be a good gesture for the world to see Iran doing a humanitarian” act.

Hickey said she and the the other mothers had yet to receive a response to their request for a meeting with Iranian officials to put their case.

After the five-hour meeting, Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, addressed reporters alongside their mothers, their arms around one another, before the three were taken back to prison.

They said they had been well treated in custody, but Shourd complained that “being alone is difficult.”

“They are together but I’m alone,” she said of her male fellow detainees.

“We have good food and good medical attention and we have reading material,” she added. “Receiving letters has been also good.”

Bauer told reporters: “I have good relations with the guards. We have good books to read.” Fattal said: “I’m very happy to see my mom again.”

The three were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, with Shourd also wearing a maroon headscarf in conformity with the Islamic dress code for women in Iran, regardless of their religion or nationality.

The mothers, who arrived on Wednesday wearing enveloping Arabian-style abayas, appeared in brightly coloured loose headscarves.

Their visit was brokered by the Swiss embassy which protects US interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic ties.

Iran has given no official indication it is preparing to release the three, although the visit itself was seen as a breakthrough.

The three young Americans were detained last July 31 after crossing Iran’s border while on a hiking trip in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Washington insists the trio are innocent and should be released, stressing that they had mistakenly strayed across an unmarked border in a remote mountainous area.

Shourd said she had no idea what charges were being levelled against them and had so far had no access to her lawyer Masoud Shafii.

Shafii, who is hoping to meet the mothers for the first time on Friday, said he had not yet had an opportunity to read the case files, but he was unaware of any spying charges.

“I was told by judiciary that they are charged with illegal entry. No judicial official has said anything about espionage charges,” he said.

“Tomorrow I am meeting with the mothers of my clients. The venue for the meeting is not set yet. I will discuss the case with them.”

On Wednesday, Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi renewed accusations of espionage against the three Americans.

“Despite their being spies and entering Iran illegally, they were dealt with according to religious teachings and in a humanitarian way,” Moslehi said.

He first made the allegation that they were spies in April when he said Iran had “compelling evidence that three Americans were cooperating with intelligence services.”

In March, Tehran public prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the three faced espionage charges. But last December, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they were accused of illegal entry.

The mothers were excited and emotional as they left the United States on Tuesday after being granted one-week visas.

In their baggage they had packed letters from friends, photographs and empty notebooks for the detainees to record their experiences.

Ties between Tehran and Washington have been poisoned for decades, with tensions now focused on the Islamic republic’s controversial nuclear programme which Western governments suspect to be a cover to make an atomic weapon.

Iran strongly denies the charge, but this week the United States circulated a draft sanctions resolution at the UN Security Council despite a compromise deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey in a bid to avert fresh punitive action.