More U. S. and international attention should be focused on the plight of three American hikers who have been languishing in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for six months. They have had no access to a lawyer or any communication with their families, who have no idea of their condition or mental state.

This is a case that could — and still should — be resolved on a humanitarian basis. But it has become caught in the web of Iran’s domestic politics and troubles with the outside world.

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that the Americans be exchanged for 11 Iranians supposedly held in the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ruled out such a swap and called for the release of the hikers. There is no parallel between them and Ahmadinejad’s list, which includes defectors and men convicted of illegal arms deals.

The three Americans, all University of California at Berkeley graduates, went astray while trekking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, where they apparently crossed an unmarked border into Iran. The Tehran prosecutor said Iran might charge them with espionage, but no charges have been brought.

You may wonder why Americans were vacationing in Iraqi Kurdistan. I can tell you, having been there: Those mountains are extraordinarily beautiful, and Kurds hike there on vacations. Moreover, Iraqi Kurdistan, unlike the rest of Iraq, is so peaceful one can forget that it’s surrounded by bad neighborhoods.

Sarah Shourd, 31, and Shane Bauer, 27, were living in Damascus, Syria, where she taught English and studied Arabic and he was a freelance journalist.

Josh Fattal, 27, who grew up in Elkins Park, had been living on an Oregon farm and teaching about sustainable development. He had just finished a stint as a teacher in a global travel program for college students, and was visiting with his friends.

If you visit the Web site set up by the hikers’ families,

www.freethehikers.org

, you can see the three are youthful idealists and outdoorsmen. They may be guilty of carelessness in not checking their route with locals, but spies they are not. Presumably, that has become obvious to the Iranians. Yet Swiss diplomats, who represent U. S. interests in Iran — with which we don’t have diplomatic relations — have been permitted only two visits with the hikers, the last in October. The hikers’ Iranian lawyer can’t get access to them or any information about the case; their mothers have applied for Iranian visas to visit them but have received no reply.

It’s hard to imagine the effects of six months of isolation. Belgian tourist Idesbald van den Bosch, who was held for three months in Evin and saw one of the hikers, says: “I’m worried for their well-being because I know the effect solitary confinement had on me.”

So why are Fattal, Shourd, and Bauer being held indefinitely and incommunicado, which violates Iranian law?

The hikers have become pawns in Iran’s dispute with the United States and the United Nations over its nuclear program. Yet it’s hard to see how Tehran can profit from holding three civilians, whose case stokes international concern about Iranian violations of human rights.

Eighty leading academics, intellectuals, artists, writers, filmmakers and journalists have signed a petition asking that the hikers be set free. They range from British billionaire businessman Richard Branson to Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi.

Tehran should take note that the list also includes MIT professor Noam Chomsky, a harsh critic of U. S. foreign policy, who says the detention hurts those who call for a shift in America’s approach to Iran. It also includes Terry Anderson, a journalist who was held hostage for seven years in Lebanon by Shiites linked to Iran. Does Iran want to remind the world of that outrage?