Oregon Public Broadcasting

A young man who spent the past several years in Oregon is among the group of hikers arrested in Iran last week. April Baer reports.

Josh Fattal is originally from Pennsylvania, but up until last spring he'd been in Oregon, working for a sustainability research institute in Lane County.

Aprovecho America is a learning center for permaculture, organic agriculture and sustainable forestry methods.

Fattal's former co-worker Jeremy Roth says Fattal was running a summer program for college-age kids.

Jeremy Roth: "Josh is a great guy, a really smart and dedicated person. We hope to see him come home soon and safe."

Fattal occasionally co-hosted a radio show on a low-power station run by Aprovecho staff.

It's not clear what took Fattal, free-lance journalists Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd to Iran.

Kurdish officials told the New York Times two of the three were studying Arabic in Damascus.

Fattal left Oregon for a world-wide study abroad program.