President Joe Biden on Tuesday (August 10) marked this week’s 10th anniversary of journalist Austin Tice’s abduction in Syria by calling on that government to end his imprisonment now.
“[H]e is an investigative journalist who put the truth above himself and traveled to Syria to show the world the real cost of war,“ Biden said. ”We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime.
“There is no higher priority in my Administration than the recovery and return of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad,“ he said. “We must name them, keep them in our hearts and our minds, and make their recovery and return a priority. That is a pledge I have made to the American people and to Austin’s parents, and it is one that I am determined to uphold.“
Tice is a freelance journalist who has been held in Syria since August 2012.
Tice, a Marine as well as a veteran journalist, had filed on the Syrian conflict for a number of news outlets, including The Washington Post, CBS, the BBC, NPR and Al-Jazeera English. He has been unaccounted for since then.
Syria regularly makes the Committee to Protect Journalists’ list of countries most dangerous for journalists. ■
