The Iranian government detained three American hikers, who had wondered across the border, from neighboring Iraq. Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has accused the trio of spying for the United States, with the latter having denied the claim. The hikers and their families also assert they are not spies.
The Iranian government should let the hikers go, as keeping them imprisoned is not promoting a good image in the world, to those that may wish to visit Iran. It will scare off tourism.
Unless a government catches a foreign agent attempting to damage or overthrow the government, stealing government equipment, machinery, apparatus or technology, hacking into government computers, stealing physical government files or national secrets kept in any other format, to charge one with spying is inappropriate.
