Joshua "Josh" Fattal, who grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, graduated from UC Berkeley, worked as co-director of an environmental education center at Aprovecho in Oregon and travelled to Switzerland, India, China, and South Africa from January to May 2009 on a fellowship with the International Honors Program (IHP)'s "Health and Community" study abroad program. Each of the detainees was released after payment of 5 billion rial (about US$465,000) bail was arranged by the Sultan of Oman. Fattal and Bauer were convicted of "illegal entry" and "espionage" two years after their arrest and each sentenced to eight years in prison, but were released on September 21, 2011.
Sarah Shourd was released 14 months later on "humanitarian grounds". Iran subsequently claimed the three were spies but offered no evidence to support its contention. įollowing the hikers' capture on the Iraqi-Iranian border, a wide range of outside voices, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and the human rights group Amnesty International, had called for the hikers' unconditional release. On the recommendations of locals, they hiked to see a popular local Iraqi tourist destination near the Iraq-Iran border, the Ahmed Awa waterfall. On July 31, 2009, three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer were taken into custody by Iranian border guards for crossing into Iran while hiking near the Iranian border in Iraqi Kurdistan.Īt the time of their detention by Iranian troops, the three Americans were on vacation from their jobs in the region in a relatively stable, autonomous region of Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan. Evin House of Detention, where the hikers were held
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