Presenting their children as cut-ups, not trespassers, the parents of detained American hikers Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer, and Sarah Shourd will release two videos today in which the three rap about Iraq just days before they were arrested July 31 for illegally crossing the border into Iran.

The video clips, totaling about a minute, are evidence the three were vacationing in the relative safety of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and had no ulterior motive for entering Iran, their families say.

"They had no intention of doing anything wrong," said Josh's mother, Laura Fattal, of Elkins Park. "He was playing. He was relaxing. He was just hanging with his friends."

Weighing on the parents is the fact that they have had no contact with, and little information about, their children for 87 days.

"We know they have been questioned," Fattal said. "What more do the Iranians expect to hear from them? . . . These are harmless kids.. . . We just want to make that as clear as possible."

One clip shows Fattal, 27, laying down a rhyme about the Middle East heat with the Iraqi city of Irbil shimmering in the background. The other shows the three hikers swaying, like pop star Robert Palmer's backup singers, inside an unfinished cinder-block building.

The clips were shot by a fourth companion, Shon Meckfessel, two days before the border crossing. He was set to join the hike but stayed behind at the hotel because of a cold.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979, so efforts to negotiate the hikers' release are being coordinated by a Swiss envoy representing U.S. interests.

He has visited them once and, according to the families, said they were not being mistreated.

Contact staff writer Michael Matza

at 215-854-2541, or mmatza@phillynews.com.