Assad Says Syria Has Held ‘Meetings’ With US
Blinken says US is 'engaged with Syria' in efforts to free missing journalist Austin Tice
The United States is "engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries" to try to bring detained journalist Austin Tice home, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. "We are extensively engaged with regard to Austin, engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries, seeking to find a way to get him home.
Parents of Austin Tice, journalist held in Syria since 2012, are "100% certain" he's alive - "The Takeout"
The full interview with Marc and Debra Tice will be available Friday morning on "The Takeout" podcast and will air on CBS News at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET Friday evening. The parents of Austin Tice, an American journalist detained in Syria for nearly a decade, are "100% certain" their son is alive.
Exclusive: Lebanon to lead hostage mediation between US and Syria, Beirut's spy chief says
The head of Lebanon's main intelligence agency has held talks with senior US officials in Washington to discuss resuming negotiations with Syria on the release of American hostages, including Austin Tice. Maj Gen Abbas Ibrahim, who heads Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security, was flown to Washington on a private flight organised by the US government.
Lebanese spy chief says he will visit Syria over missing US reporter
BEIRUT: Lebanon's intelligence chief has said he will visit Syria for talks with Syrian leaders about the fate of a US reporter who went missing in Syria a decade ago. Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said US officials want him to resume efforts to bring home Austin Tice and other Americans missing in Syria.
Explained: Who is Austin Tice, the American journalist who disappeared in Syria a decade ago?
The Joe Biden administration has initiated new efforts to locate missing journalist Austice Tice, who disappeared from Syria while covering the civil war in 2012. Who is Tice, and what do we know about his disappearance? Why have efforts to trace him failed so far?
#BringAustinHome campaign to feature sitewide messaging for detained journalist Austin Tice
Comment Gift Article Ahead of the grim ten-year anniversary of Austin Tice's abduction while reporting in Syria, The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership urgently calls for his safe return with an "Ask About Austin" sitewide message on Sunday, August 14.
People are Eager to See Austin Home, Mother of Missing Journalist Says
Debra Tice on the 10-year search for her son, American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive in Syria
Transcript: American Hostage with Debra & Marc Tice, Parents of Austin Tice
MR. REZAIAN: Good afternoon. Welcome to Washington Post Live. My name is Jason Rezaian. I am a global opinions writer here at The Washington Post. My guests today are Debra and Marc Tice, the parents of freelance journalist Austin Tice. Austin was abducted in Syria, just south of Damascus.
Debra Tice on Austin's accomplishments before his capture
"He had great plans for himself, that was part of why he was in law school. Sometimes it's hard to remember that Austin was 31 three days before he was detained. So, all of the things that he had accomplished, he accomplished in his twenties...Usually, the twenties are sort of going to school, getting started, partying a lot, that wasn't Austin.
A message from Debra Tice, Austin's mother
"It's been 10 years since I've hugged my son." Debra Tice, mother of detained journalist Austin Tice, has been advocating for her son's safe return from Syria for a decade. Hear her message to the U.S. government to bring Austin home.
Biden to hold talks with Syria regime over captive US journalist
US President Joe Biden yesterday ordered his administration to hold direct talks with the Syrian regime to discuss the case of American journalist Austin Tice, who has been held in Syria for a decade.
NBC News' Lester Holt interviews parents of missing American Austin Tice
NBC News' Lester Holt interviews the parents of Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist and Marine veteran who went missing in Syria. Tice was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus in August 2012 and a month after a video of him apparently captured was posted. That was the last time Tice was seen.
#BringAustinHome banner spotlights Tice ahead of 10-year anniversary
Comment Gift Article On Tuesday, The Washington Post shined a spotlight on the unresolved case of abducted journalist Austin Tice, unveiling a #BringAustinHome banner on the exterior of The Post building ahead of the grim 10-year anniversary of Tice's disappearance while reporting in Syria.
Biden Calls on Syria to Help Secure Release of Journalist Austin Tice
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on Syria to help secure the release of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted a decade ago in Damascus. "We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime," Biden said in a statement.
Austin Tice's mother: Biden comments show he is 'ready to engage with Syria'
The mother of American journalist and former Marine Austin Tice said that President Biden's recent remarks on her son's detainment abroad show that the president is "ready to engage with Syria" on bringing her son back home. During an appearance on CNN's "New Day," host John Berman asked Tice's mother, Debra Tice, about her reaction...
10 years after Austin Tice's abduction in Syria, his parents still fight for him
Debra and Marc Tice wanted some joy. So they got a piñata. She baked a special birthday cake. They invited their whole large family to a celebration. But there was an absence that was impossible to ignore - the birthday boy.
Opinion | After 10 years of agony, it's time for Syria to free Austin Tice
After a decade of no progress, it was encouraging to see President Biden's confident assertion on Wednesday about our abducted colleague, journalist Austin Tice. "We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime," Mr. Biden said of Mr. Tice, who was detained and disappeared 10 years ago this weekend while covering the Syrian civil war.
Austin Tice Has Been Held Hostage Longer Than Any American Journalist Ever. His Texas Family Is Still Fighting for His Return.
Debra Tice's phone pinged at 4:30 a.m. on Monday, May 2, the 3,548th day since her son Austin had disappeared in Syria. Given the time difference between her home in southwest Houston and the Middle East, she was accustomed to receiving messages in the dead of night from sources and friends she'd gotten to know in the region.
Debra Tice: U.S. is capable of bringing American detainees home. 'My son qualifies. Let's go.'
Almost a decade after the abduction of American journalist and Marine veteran Austin Tice in Syria, his mother Debra Tice joins Andrea Mitchell to express her frustration and hopes for government action to bring her son home as the 10-year anniversary nears. Reacting to reports of negotiations between the U.S.
Exclusive: Fresh hopes journalist Austin Tice is alive 10 years after his disappearance
President Biden is not the first American leader to seek to free Mr Tice. Former president Donald Trump was enthusiastic at the thought of freeing American hostages. Former national security advisor John Bolton wrote in his memoir that he found Mr Trump's constant desire to call up Syrian president Bashar al-Assad "undesirable".
Austin Tice was taken hostage in Syria 10 years ago. Joe Biden must bring him home
Few expressions of the journalistic mission could be more essential and unflinching than Austin Tice's reporting on the Syrian civil war for McClatchy and others. Tice was one of the few journalists who left a country that enshrines press freedom in our founding document for one where the government and its enemies targeted reporters for abduction and worse.
Parents of missing journalist Austin Tice say 'we can feel progress' after 10 years
WASHINGTON - The parents of a Houston journalist who went missing in Syria a decade ago met at the White House in May with Joe Biden, the third president to hold office since their son disappeared.
Austin Tice has been missing for 10 years. President Biden, it's time to bring him home.
Ten years. An American, a veteran U.S. Marine, a man who became a foreign correspondent so that his fellow Americans would know what was happening in Syria, has been missing for 10 years. President Joe Biden knows about Austin Tice. So did President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama.
Remarks from Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan at the National Press Club marking Austin Tice's 10 years in captivity
On August 14, 2022, Washington Post Publisher & CEO Fred Ryan delivered remarks at a National Press Club reception to mark the tenth anniversary of Austin Tice's disappearance in Syria. Below is the full text of his remarks. As Austin's devoted parents Marc and Debra remind us, this year marks a grim milestone.
US 'directly engaged' with Syrian officials on Austin Tice case
The United States has "directly engaged" with Syrian officials on the detention of US journalist Austin Tice, a spokesman for the US Department of State said, as the Biden administration renewed its pledge to secure Tice's safe return to the country.
Austin Tice: Syria denies holding US journalist captive
The Syrian government on Wednesday denied holding American nationals captive, including journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted a decade ago in Damascus. It issued a statement in response to US President Joe Biden's comments last week that he knew "with certainty" that Tice "has been held by the Syrian regime".
National Press Club on Syria claim about Tice
The executive director of the National Press Club is expressing cautious optimism that a dialogue between the United States and Syria is starting to take shape over long held captive Austin Tice. (Aug. 17) © 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC.
Austin Tice mediations between US and Syria 'going as they should be,' Lebanese general says
Mediations between the United States and Syria over U.S. Marine veteran and journalist Austin Tice, who last seen in Syria a decade ago, are going "as they should be," a Lebanese general said Tuesday. "Matters might be moving slowly but they are going as they should," Lebanese Maj. Gen.
US turns to Oman to mediate hostage release in Syria
Oman has stepped up its mediation efforts in hopes of releasing US hostages held in Syria through effective mediation at the request of the US, according to Intelligence Online .
NPC Calls For Release Of Journalist Austin Tice| Countercurrents
The National Press Club in Washington, DC today upped the public awareness campaign calling for the immediate release of war correspondent Austin Tice who was kidnapped on August 13, 2012, after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus, Syria.
Top Lebanese intel chief, mediator with Syria steps down
BEIRUT (AP) - A Lebanese intelligence chief who has mediated the release of Westerners held in Syria and also acted as a mediator within Lebanon stepped down Wednesday after attempts to extend his term failed. Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim's term as a head of the General Security Directorate ends Thursday, when he reaches retirement age of 64 in Lebanon.
A somber WHCD affair
Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Unlike most of the people headed Saturday to the Washington Hilton ballroom, DEBRA TICE would give everything in the world to not attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Austin Tice's mother says assurances about efforts to bring him home have "lost their strength"
During his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday, President Biden brought up American journalist Austin Tice who was kidnapped in 2012 while reporting in Syria. Tice's mother, Debra Tice, discusses the U.S. government's efforts to bring her son home on CBS News.
Conversation with Debra Tice, Mother of Austin Tice, Polk Award-winning Journalist Held in Syria Since 2012
Conversation with Debra Tice, Mother of Austin Tice, Polk Award-winning Journalist Held in Syria Since 2012 Where: National Press Club, 529 14 th Street NW Washington, DC 20045 13 th floor, Zenger Room The National Press Club is hosting a news conference with Debra Tice , mother of award-winning journalist Austin Tice who has been held in Syria since 2012.
WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Revives Talks With Syria Over Missing Journalist Austin Tice
DUBAI-The Biden administration has renewed direct talks with Syria to determine the fate of missing journalist Austin Tice and other Americans who disappeared during the nation's civil war, according to Middle East officials familiar with the efforts. U.S.
Russian release fuels hopes for Biden action on US captives held worldwide
ate last month saw the release of Trevor Reed, a US citizen and former marine who had been detained in Russia since 2019 on a nine-year sentence for endangering the "life and health" of Russian police officers.
Austin Tice's parents tell CNN they received support from Biden for efforts to get him home | CNN Politics
The parents of Austin Tice, an American journalist kidnapped in Syria nearly a decade ago, told CNN they received support from President Joe Biden on efforts to bring their son home.
April 13, 2022
BAKER PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP: AUSTIN BENNETT TICE
Baker Prize for Excellence in Leadership: Austin Bennett Tice
Apr. 13, 2022In May 2012, while a student at Georgetown Law School, Austin Tice traveled to Syria as a freelance journalist to report on the country’s ongoin…
Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy honors Austin Tice for his courage and service in reporting on Syria’s violent and tragic civil war. His outstanding work exemplifies the values of the James A. Baker III Prize for Excellence in Leadership. This event marks the eighth time the award has been conferred in the Baker Institute’s 28-year history.
Parents of hostage Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria in 2012, meet with Biden
President Biden is meeting Monday with the parents of Austin Tice, the freelance journalist and veteran who was abducted in Syria a decade ago, after saying Saturday at the White House Correspondents Dinner that he'd like to meet them and talk about their son.
Austin Tice's family says the U.S. government is their biggest obstacle in bringing their son home | Houston Public Media
The family of Houston journalist Austin Tice, who reportedly has been in Syrian custody since 2012, say they're facing new obstacles in seeking his return - specifically, the U.S. State Department. Houston native Austin Tice was working as a freelance journalist reporting on the Syrian conflict when he was abducted in 2012 .
Mother of US journalist detained in Syria seeks Qatar's help
Analysts believe the Gulf state's possible role in securing the release of the journalist can be a challenge, given its staunch refusal to normalise with the Bashar Al Assad regime. The mother of American journalist, Austin Tice, who has been held hostage in Syria since 2012, hopes that Qatar's Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discusses her son's release during Monday's meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington.
Mother of abducted U.S. journalist Austin Tice to meet with national security adviser Jake Sullivan
The mother of abducted American journalist Austin Tice is meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan Friday, a person familiar with the meeting told CBS News. Debra Tice claims President Biden has so far been unwilling to meet with her. Austin Tice, now 40, was abducted in Syria in 2012.
Austin Tice's mother says White House a 'hurdle' to his return
The mother of Austin Tice, a freelance journalist taken captive in Syria nine years ago, said the White House remains a "hurdle" to bringing her son home. Tice, a former Marine captain from Texas who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, is among roughly half a dozen US citizens thought to have been seized by the Syrian government or allied forces.
White House is a 'hurdle' to son Austin Tice's release, mother says
The mother of abducted journalist Austin Tice said Thursday that the White House has become a "hurdle" to freeing her son from captivity, suggesting that his release was not a priority for the highest levels of the Biden administration.
Petition to free Austin Tice gains momentum following 5K run - Editor and Publisher
A petition to free Austin Tice, an award-winning journalist and Marine veteran being detained unjustly in Syria, has gained momentum thanks in part to last weekend's virtual 5K event sponsored by the National Press Club. The Club's petition for Tice on Change.org had garnered approximately 142,000 signatures on Nov. 7.
October 18, 2021 - Austin is inducted into the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution
October 14, 2021 by Abby Tucker 
Parents of Austin Tice Call on Biden Administration To Prioritize Tice’s Release
The parents of Austin Tice (SFS ’02) wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden on Oct. 3, calling on his administration to prioritize Tice’s safe return to the United States.
Tice, who has been missing since August 2012, was kidnapped while covering the Syrian civil war, the summer after completing his second year at Georgetown University Law Center. Over a month after his disappearance in Darayya, a video published anonymously showed Tice blindfolded and surrounded by armed and masked men. While the Biden administration believes Tice is alive, no presidential administration has been able to bring him home.
Georgetown University | Debra and Marc Tice urge Biden to put all efforts towards securing Tice’s return in the letter, which comes nine years after his disappearance.
Debra and Marc Tice, Tice’s parents, published their open letter in The Washington Post on Oct. 3, specifically calling on Biden to engage diplomats and other U.S. State Department officials in an effort to help secure Tice’s release and return to the United States.
The Biden administration should prioritize Tice’s release because it has emphasized family protections and values, according to the Tices’ letter.
“In these early days of your administration, you have clearly messaged that family is at the core of your agenda,” the letter reads. “We believe that if Austin were a member of your family, all the Bidens would rally around and come together to bring him home. On Austin’s behalf, because you are president of the country he honorably served as a Marine Corps officer, we are asking you for that kind of all-in effort.”
The Tice family hopes that continued activism will ultimately help secure Austin Tice’s safe return to the United States, according to Debra Tice.
“We continue to relentlessly advocate for Austin’s secure release and safe return. We hope and pray he will soon walk free,” Tice wrote in an email to The Hoya.
Georgetown continues to support the Tice family’s calls for action from the Biden administration, according to Joel Hellman, dean of the School of Foreign Service.
“We at SFS stand with the Tice family in urging the U.S. Government to do everything within its power to bring Austin home,” Hellman wrote in an email to The Hoya. “His commitment to risk everything in order to expose the suffering of the Syrian people represents the true spirit of Georgetown.”
The Georgetown community has remained active in calling for Tice’s release. Georgetown community members sent letters to congressional representatives in April 2021, urging their representatives to call on the Biden administration to prioritize Tice’s return.
Tice is also important to journalists around the world, according to Doyle McManus, director of Georgetown’s journalism department.
“Austin Tice is important to the journalistic community, Austin Tice is important to the Georgetown community, and Austin Tice, at the end of the day, is important to all of us,” McManus said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “He was a journalist carrying out the search for truth, and it’s vitally important that the U.S. government do what it can to protect people who do that, or fewer and fewer people will ever be able to do that again.”
Despite activism for Tice’s return, Tice’s parents have expressed frustration over a lack of action taken to secure his release, according to a statement released Aug. 11, Tice’s 40th birthday.
The U.S. government continues to commit resources to helping secure Tice’s release from Syria, according to a U.S. official.
CLIPS
POLITICO National Security Daily: TICE FAMILY URGES BIDEN ACTION— The parents of AUSTIN TICE, the journalist and former Marine detained in Syria, penned an open letter to the White House today, demanding the president make Tice’s return a higher priority for the administration. “Our entire family urges you to prioritize Austin’s secure release and safe return to us and to the country he loves,” Debra and Marc Tice wrote. “Mr. President, Austin needs you to step out and boldly lead. Please say our son’s name in public. Talk about Austin Tice; let people in Washington and Damascus know you are thinking of him. Put courage in their hearts to do the right thing. We have no doubt your family will support you, and our government will unite behind you.” The Tices also requested a meeting between their family and Biden’s to talk about Austin and “send a strong message across our country and overseas.” Tice has been held hostage in Syria for nine years, and efforts by U.S. officials to bring him home so far haven’t worked. A National Security Council spokesperson responded to the letter after a NatSec Daily query: “We continue to emphasize that Austin’s release and return home are long overdue. The Biden administration continues to call on Syria to help release Austin Tice and every American unjustly detained in Syria. We are committed to following all avenues, including engagement with anyone who can help with Austin’s release and return home.” “We have been and remain open to direct communication with anyone who can help us bring Austin and other American hostages home,” the spokesperson added.
POLITICO Playbook PM: CALL TO ACTION — DEBRA and MARC TICE, the parents of AUSTIN TICE, are out with an open letter to Biden urging him to take action in securing Austin’s return from captivity in Syria. “Mr. President, Austin needs you to step out and boldly lead. Please say our son’s name in public. Talk about Austin Tice; let people in Washington and Damascus know you are thinking of him. Put courage in their hearts to do the right thing. We have no doubt your family will support you, and our government will unite behind you.” Debra and Marc also requested a meeting with Biden and his family to “show that you have taken the lead and we are working on this together.” The letter (includes link to Press Freedom Partnership newsletter)
The Hill: Family of Austin Tice calls on Biden to help secure son’s release from Syria— The family of Austin Tice, the American journalist and former Marine who has been held captive in Syria for nearly nine years, is calling on President Biden to prioritize securing their son’s safe release…“We believe that if Austin were a member of your family, all the Bidens would rally around and come together to bring him home,” the Tice family wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post…The Hill reached out to the White House for comment.
CNN’s Reliable Sources: Austin Tice’s parents ask for meeting with Biden — Oliver Darcy writes: “Austin Tice’s parents say they would ‘welcome the opportunity’ to meet with President Biden and his family. In an open letter that will run as a full-page ad in the Washington Post on Monday, Debra and Marc Tice write, ‘We’d like to tell you more about Austin. A meeting of our loving families would send a strong message across our country and overseas.’ The letter comes nine years after Tice was abducted. The Tice family told Biden that they believe ‘if Austin were a member of your family, all the Bidens would rally around and come together to bring him home.’ They are calling on him to engage on ‘that kind of all-in effort’ for their son…”
Military Times Early Bird Brief: An open letter to President Biden for Austin Tice (links to Press Freedom Partnership newsletter)
Lawfare: Today’s Headlines and Commentary— The family of Austin Tice, the American journalist and former Marine detained in Syria, penned an open letter to Biden requesting the president directly orders to facilitate Tice’s return, reports the Hill. The letter contends that current officials must “build off the breakthroughs that were achieved by the previous administration” through direct engagement and relevant dialogue.
The Poynter Report— The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership’s October newsletter features an open letter to President Joe Biden from the parents of Austin Tice, the freelance journalist who was abducted in Syria in 2012 and is believed to still be alive.
Editor & Publisher: An open letter to President Biden from the parents of Austin Tice (includes link to letter on WashPostPR blog)
TWEETS
The Hill @thehill: Family of Austin Tice calls on Biden to help secure son’s release from Syria
Fox News Foreign Correspondent Benjamin Hall @BenjaminHallFNC: Austin Tice, journalist and marine has been imprisoned in Syria for 9 years. His parents wrote an open letter to President Biden. “We believe that if Austin were a member of your family all the Bidens would rally around and come together to bring him home”
CNN Senior Media Reporter @OliverDarcy: Austin Tice’s parents write open letter to Biden: “We believe that if Austin were a member of your family, all the Bidens would rally around and come together to bring him home. On Austin’s behalf … we are asking you for that kind of all-in effort.”
Reuters Nat Sec Correspondent @JonathanLanday: “President Biden, speaking for Austin, our entire family urges you to prioritize Austin’s secure release and safe return to us and to the country he loves.” #freeaustintice
Barstool Sports ‘Zero Blog Thirty’ Podcast (military podcast) Co-Host Kate Mannion @katebarstool (111k followers): #FreeAustinTice
Journalist Lauren Wolfe @Wolfe321 (86.4k followers): Austin Tice’s parents are running an ad in WaPo, 9 yrs after he was abducted in Syria while reporting. “Plse say our son’s name in public. Talk about Austin Tice; let people in Washington & Damascus know you are thinking of him. Put courage in their hearts to do the right thing.”
White House Correspondents Association @WHCA: Moving and powerful letter from the parents of journalist Austin Tice, now held in captivity for 9 years.
Former NPR Host and Executive Producer Kitty Eisele @RadioKitty: And please don’t forget missing journalist #austintice, held in Syria for nine years now.
Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Bruce Hoffman @hoffman_bruce: After 9 years Austin Tice remains imprisoned in Syria.
Society of Professional Journalists @spjtweets: “President Biden, you speak often and movingly of the significance of journalism and its value in a democratic society. Austin obviously shares these values with you and is paying a high price for doing this critically important work.” #FreeAustinTice wapo.st/3DcghsQ
Military Times Reporter Todd South @tsouthjourno: U.S. citizen and Marine veteran Austin Tice was abducted more than nine years ago in Syria. His family pleads for President Joe Biden to bring him home: s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/
An open letter to President Biden from the parents of Austin Tice
The following letter appears in The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership's October newsletter : Dear Mr. President, August 14 is the date of our son's abduction; this year it marks nine years of detention in Syria. President Biden, speaking for Austin, our entire family urges you to prioritize Austin's secure release and safe return to us and to the country he loves.
U.S. government offers reward of up to $1 million for safe return of Austin Tice - Editor and Publisher
The United States government is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading directly to the safe location, recovery and return of Austin Bennett Tice, a freelance journalist and photographer who was kidnapped in Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 13, 2012. Click here to read more.
Biden administration calls on Syria to return missing journalist Austin Tice
The Biden administration Wednesday called on Syria to help return Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who disappeared in the war-torn country nine years ago and is believed to be held by the regime. "We believe that it is within Bashar al-Assad's power to free Austin," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement marking Tice's 40th birthday.
Parents of Austin Tice, journalist who disappeared in Syria, speak out on his 40th birthday
Austin Tice, a freelance journalist and former Marine, disappeared nine years ago while on assignment in Syria. Debra and Marc Tice, who have never given up hope for their son's safe return, spoke to Lester Holt in an exclusive interview on their son's 40th birthday.
Opinion: Austin Tice is turning 40. Can this president finally bring him home?
A banner at the Newseum raises awareness about Austin Tice, a journalist who is being held hostage. (Kery Murakami/Kery Murakami/ Express)
It was the last birthday Austin Tice celebrated as a free man.
Three days later, on Aug. 14, 2012, Tice — a young freelance journalist who had traveled to Syria to document that country’s ongoing conflict, including for The Post — was abducted at a roadside checkpoint on his way to Damascus. Video and information released since suggests that he is alive and being held captive by an armed group allied with the Syrian government.
The United States should never stand by when dictatorships take our citizens hostage. But the offense is especially outrageous when the victims are journalists, who provide the information and perspective our democracy needs to function, often at great personal risk.
The offense is especially heartbreaking when the victim is a person like Austin, who has always embraced the ethos of service to others that distinguishes our finest citizens. He was an Eagle Scout who, during his decade as an infantryman in the Marine Corps, deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, rising to the rank of captain before leaving for the reserves. He went on to study at Georgetown Law; during his final summer there, a time when many students pursue lucrative law-firm positions, Tice followed a different path. He wanted to use his unique skills and experiences to tell the world the devastating stories of a country riven by civil war. His courageous, groundbreaking journalism from Syria was honored with the prestigious George Polk Award.
Those who know and love Austin have done everything possible to secure his release. The past nine years have been especially agonizing for Austin’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice. They surely imagined in 2012 that, by Austin’s 40th birthday, he would have begun his law practice, married, started a family and continued serving the country he loves. The idea that he would have spent this entire time languishing at the hands of brutal captors in Syria would have filled them with horror — as it should all of us.
Our country should not — cannot — leave Austin Tice behind. Unfortunately, his plight has now extended into a third presidential administration. Obama was not able to free him. Trump was reportedly determined to bring Austin and other hostages home but was thwarted by obstacles that included his own bureaucracy.
Today, President Biden has an opening to succeed where his predecessors failed. From Syria’s point of view, a new negotiating partner can offer a fresh start. A new administration still in search of a Syria policy has a chance to place Tice’s return front and center.
In this particular case, it also involves weighing everything the United States wants out of Syria — an end to the devastating conflict, heinous human rights abuses, war crimes and oppression — alongside the prolonged suffering of Tice and his family. Each day that Tice remains detained, he and his family are joined in their suffering by the American people, who expect that our citizens captured abroad will not be abandoned to their fate and that our leaders will stand up for democratic values and a free press.
As the father of another young man who served his country with distinction, Biden can surely understand that whatever diplomatic challenges he faces pale against the unspeakable pain Tice’s parents have endured day after day, hoping against hope that our government can bring their beloved son home.
Turning 40 is a milestone in anyone’s life. In Austin Tice’s case, as he enters his 10th year of imprisonment, it means he has spent nearly a quarter of his life held hostage. It is now up to Biden to ensure that, before Austin’s next birthday, his family’s hopes of his safe return are fulfilled.
Help bring attention to the case of detained American journalist Austin Tice by wearing a #FreeAustinTice bracelet from The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership, available for free in The Post store.
As Austin Tice spends his 40th birthday in captivity, RSF reaffirms its commitment to his safe return
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the safe release and return of American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped near the Syrian capital of Damascus on August 14, 2012 while reporting on the country’s civil war. Austin, who will turn 40 on August 11, is entering his tenth year in captivity.
“Austin should be marking the milestone of his 40th birthday surrounded by loved ones and celebrating the many personal and professional successes that he would have no doubt had if he hadn’t been held against his will these past nine years,” said Anna K. Nelson, the Executive Director of RSF USA. “It’s high time that Austin be allowed to come home. His parents, Debra and Marc, have worked tirelessly to end his ordeal. We’re asking the US government to continue relevant and direct engagement with the Syrian government regarding Austin’s case, and for those who are detaining him to do the right thing in letting Austin go.”
March 2021 marked the tenth anniversary of the popular uprising that led to Syria’s civil war, which has had a devastating impact on the country’s media and journalists. According to information gathered by RSF and its partners since 2011, at least 300 professional and non-professional journalists have been killed while covering artillery bombardments and airstrikes, murdered by various parties to the conflict, or have either disappeared or fled abroad.
“Journalists in Syria have been under attack for a decade,” said RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire. “Nine years in captivity is nine too many for Austin and his family — RSF stands firm in its resolve that Austin be released and allowed to return to the US as soon as possible.”
RSF has been a steadfast advocate of Austin Tice for many years, leading public advocacy campaigns to ensure his return home remains a top priority for the US federal government. Previously, RSF partnered with The National Press Club and other press freedom organizations to launch the “Night Out for Austin Tice,” an initiative to raise awareness and funds to supplement the $1 million FBI reward for information leading to Austin’s safe return. In 2016, RSF partnered with The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, McClatchy and other media outlets to launch the #FreeAustinTice campaign. Print and digital ads promoting the campaign were run in outlets to raise awareness of Austin Tice’s case across the country.
The United States ranks 44th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index and Syria ranks 173rd.
‘We Won’t Give Up’: Advocates Hope Biden Will Finally Bring Marine Vet Austin Tice Home
It’s been more than eight years since Marine Corps veteran and freelance journalist Austin Tice was detained at a checkpoint outside of Damascus as he worked to cover the Syrian war’s impact on civilians. He hasn’t been seen since, but those who know him believe that he is still alive.
U.S. officials told McClatchy news service April 14 that they are operating “with the sincere belief” that Tice is alive, and 80 lawmakers signed an April 26 letter urging the Biden administration to use “every constructive tool in [its] power to secure Austin’s safe return.”
Tice is one of about six U.S. citizens believed to be held by the Syrian government or forces allied to it. His case is particularly complicated because no group has claimed responsibility for his capture.
There have been several unsuccessful attempts to get Austin back, including an August 2020 trip in which Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and then-Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council Kash Patel met with the head of Syria’s intelligence agency, Ali Mamlouk.
Syria is ranked 173 out of the 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2021 World Press Freedom Index; at least 300 journalists have been arrested and almost 100 have been victims of abduction in the country since 2011.
Several of the lawmakers who signed the April 26 letter to Biden are veterans, including Rep. Van Taylor, R-Texas, and Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.
“I certainly feel a sense of camaraderie with him, not just as a fellow American but as a fellow Marine,” Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who served in the Marine Corps from 2002 to 2008, told Miiltary.com. “I had the honor of meeting with Debra and Marc Tice, Austin’s parents, back in 2019. And I promised them that our government would not give up the fight to bring him home. And that still holds true today. We won’t give up.
“It is our duty to do everything we can to bring him home. … Austin has spent every birthday, every holiday alone and imprisoned in Syria thousands of miles away from family, friends and the country he so bravely served,” he added. “We’re encouraged by reports from the Biden administration that Austin may still be alive. It’s imperative that the administration use every resource at its disposal to bring him home to his family and friends. They don’t want to spend another holiday without him.”
Taylor, who served on active duty in the Marine Corps for 10 years, including in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom, said, “Congress is prepared to do anything in its power” to bring Austin back home, adding that he was proud that members “of all political stripes all over the country” came together to urge Biden to act.
“As a veteran, I think we need to bring everybody home, especially our veterans,” Taylor, who left the Marine Corps Reserve as a major, told Military.com. “I want to see the Biden administration apply pressure on the Assad regime to get Austin Tice home.”
Retired Lt. Col. Brian Bruggeman, who served in the Marine Corps for 23 years, worked with Tice for about nine months.
He described Tice as “challenging in a good way,” adding that he always asked thought-provoking questions.
“Austin’s questions were not limited to the tactical situation that we were in. … They were about our role in Afghanistan at the time or … how to best help the Afghan people,” Bruggeman told Military.com. “He developed an affection for the people that lived in the country in which we were operating. … Austin’s affection was just fundamental to who he was.”
Bruggeman lost a close friend and fellow pilot in a training accident in early 2012. Though Tice was no longer with the unit, he reached out to Bruggeman. “And he said, ‘Hey, I understand if you didn’t want to do this, but let me know if you want to talk to my mom, she’s really good at talking about this stuff.’ And I’ll never forget that.”
Col. Masahiro Oda, who currently serves in the Japanese Army, met Tice in 2010 at the U.S. Army’s Airborne Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He described Tice as “a very gentle and a very kind person.”
“I felt his strong sense of justice, and I felt that he has a very strong heart,” Oda said as he placed his hand over his own heart. “I think that he went to the Middle East based on his sense of justice. I believe that he is working hard somewhere in the Middle East. I want to believe.”
Bruggeman is also hopeful that he will see Tice again.
“I’m proud to have gotten to know [him]. I’m proud to be part of the effort in some small way to keep his story alive,” he said. “I look forward to seeing Austin again; that’s about it.”
More than anything, Bruggeman said he would like to know that the government “is doing everything they can to find, locate and get Austin Tice back.”
“I understand we cannot invade any country we want [in order] to pick any person up unless we know exactly what that person is. But, short of that, we can do everything we can to find where that person is and get them out through any means possible,” he said. “Just knowing that the people in our government are pursuing that with passion, that’s what I want.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the titles of Roger Carstens and Kash Patel.
Monday, April 26, 2021, President Biden received a letter signed by a bi-partisan group of 80 US House Representatives and Senators, expressing their support for the use of every diplomatic means to secure Austin’s safe return home. We are deeply grateful to the wonderful team who conceived and delivered this initiative, to the 2000+ friends who sent their federal reps a letter, and to the Senators and Representatives who responded and expressed their firm support. Click the images to enlarge.
Trump wants to see Austin Tice home before he leaves office, says national security adviser
Mom of missing American Austin Tice claims ‘insubordinate’ US officials holding up release talks
February 28, 2020
The mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist believed imprisoned by militants in Syria since 2012, told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Friday that the Trump administration should do whatever it takes to bring her son home.
Host Tucker Carlson said that the Syrian government invited the U.S. government to send a representative to Damascus to discuss Tice’s case, but according to the host, “neocons at the State Department have intervened and, therefore, it hasn’t happened.”
Debra Tice told Carlson that officials who are opposed to opening negotiations are “insubordinate to the president of the United States because it’s his will for Austin to walk free and the only way that he’s going to do that is to have a dialogue and the Syrians have opened the door.”
Tice added that Trump assured her verbally and in writing that her son will come home and said she trusts the president to do so.
“It’s on us to respond [to the Syrian government] and engage in a conversation that will secure Austin’s safe release,” Debra Tice said.
“The question is who is going to stand in the way of the President of the United States bringing our son home?” Debra Tice said. “And who would want to do that?”
Trump asks Syria to Free Austin Tice Immediately
BY FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
MARCH 19, 2020 01:43 PM
President Donald Trump on Thursday called on Syria to release freelance journalist Austin Tice, who worked for McClatchy and other news organizations and has been missing since 2012.
“We hope the Syrian government will do that. We are counting on them to do that. We’ve written a letter just recently,” Trump said at the start of a press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic.
“He’s been there for a long time. And he was captured long ago. Austin Tice’s mother is probably watching, and she’s a great lady. And we’re doing the best we can,” he said.
Tice was reporting on the war in Syria when he went missing in 2012. His parents have been relentless in asking the U.S. government to help bring him home.
“I want to let everyone know that recovering Americans held captive and imprisoned abroad continues to be a top priority for my administration,” Trump said.
He said his administration has been “working very hard with Syria to get him out” and praised Robert O’Brien, who was previously a chief hostage negotiator and is now the national security advisor, for his work.
“So Syria, please work with us. And we would appreciate you letting him out. If you think about what we’ve done, we’ve gotten rid of the ISIS caliphate for Syria. We’ve done a lot for Syria,” Trump said.
“We have to see if they’re going to do this. So it would be very much appreciated if they would let Austin Tice out immediately,” he said.
Tice has been missing since August 2012. The United States government is offering a $1 million reward for information that leads directly to his return.
“This administration is pressing it much more diligently than the previous administration,” Debra Tice told McClatchy in a January interview. “There is a deliberate, concerted effort to make this happen.”
In a statement after the president’s remarks on Thursday, she said the Tice family is grateful to O’Brien and Trump for their advocacy of her son’s release. “The President has our deepest appreciation,” Tice wrote.
“At this very disturbing time for our nation and the world, it is more important than ever to get Austin safely home. As President Trump said, we ask the Syrian government to do all they can to locate and safely return Austin to our family. May it be soon!” she said.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
Francesca Chambers has covered the White House for more than five years across two presidencies. In 2016, she was embedded with the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. She is a Kansas City native and a graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.
Mother of detained reporter urges U.S. to talk with Syrians
A single U.S. government official is believed to be blocking talks with Syrian authorities about securing the release of an American journalist said to be held in that country, the reporter’s mother told a press conference Monday, January 27th at the National Press Club.
Friday, September 27, 2019, President Trump received a letter signed by a bi-partisan group of 121 US House Representatives and 52 Senators, expressing their support for the use of every diplomatic means to secure Austin’s safe return home. Our deepest thanks to the over 100 volunteers who visited every Congressional office on Austin’s behalf, and to all the Senators and Representatives who expressed their firm support. Click the images to enlarge.
It’s been seven years. Let Austin Tice go.
August 8 at 5:05 PM
THE WAR in Syria is winding down, at least around Damascus, where journalist Austin Tice was kidnapped seven years ago by unknown abductors. Our determination to see him free is not winding down. He has lost seven years of freedom that cannot be replaced, but release would give him a chance to enjoy the precious years he has remaining. Whatever motives the kidnappers had in 2012 must have long dissipated. We appeal to them to bring this long nightmare to a close and set him free.
Mr. Tice, a former Marine captain, felt a calling to report on the war in Syria and followed his curiosity there. Some of his work appeared in The Post, and he was also published by McClatchy newspapers. Planning to leave Syria for Lebanon on Aug. 14, 2012, having just turned 31 years old, he got into a taxi in Darayya but never made it to the border. Five weeks later, a video emerged that showed him being held by a group of unidentified armed men. The title of the video was “Austin Tice is Alive.”
His parents, Debra and Marc Tice, said in a recent open letter, “Austin is alive, with the hope of once again walking free.” A $1 million reward offered by the FBI, which has since been matched by a coalition of media organizations, has prompted several new sources of information to come forward, his father said in December, without specifying the new information. The family has said there were no claims of responsibility or messages from the captors since the initial video. Recently, an American traveler, Sam Goodwin, who was detained by government forces in Syria, was released after nearly two months following mediation by a Lebanese general. While the details of the mediation are not known, the release should be taken as a sign of what is possible.
We can only guess what horrors Mr. Tice has been through. Terry Anderson, the Associated Press reporter who was kidnapped by Hezbollah in Beirut in March 1985, recalled in his memoir the mental stress of solitary confinement. “There is nothing to hold on to, no way to anchor my mind. I try praying, every day, sometimes for hours. But there’s nothing there, just a blankness. I’m talking to myself, not God.” But Mr. Anderson, also a Marine veteran, held tenaciously to the hope of release and eventually found support from other captives. Mr. Anderson was held longer than any other hostage of the Lebanon war, released in 1991 after 2,455 days in captivity.
Mr. Tice has now been held longer than Mr. Anderson. This is a grim benchmark for Mr. Tice and for his family. But Mr. Anderson’s story shows that human willpower can be an indomitable force against the most difficult odds. We hope Mr. Tice has also found such strength, and that those who seized him seven years ago will at last open the cell door and let him go.
Austin Tice Has Been Held Captive for Nearly 7 Years. He Must Be Freed.
This law student and freelance journalist was seized in Syria in 2012.
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
Aug. 8, 2019
Two anniversaries approach for Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist. On Sunday, he will turn 38; three days later, he will start his eighth year in captivity, probably somewhere in Syria.
Mr. Tice is a graduate of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, served as a Marine officer and was enrolled at Georgetown Law. But he longed to be a reporter, so in May of 2012, with a year to go in law school, he set out for Syria to report on how the civil war was affecting the lives of ordinary people.
The war was just entering its second year, and there wasn’t much reporting about it — getting into combat zones from either the government side or the rebel side was dangerous and difficult. So Mr. Tice went in illegally. Soon his images, interviews and reports were appearing in The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers, Agence France-Presse and other news outlets.
Mr. Tice intended to leave after his 31st birthday, on Aug. 11, after filing his last pieces. On Aug. 14 he left for Lebanon by car from the Damascus suburb of Darayya, then in rebel hands. Shortly after, he was detained at a checkpoint.
Five weeks later, a 47-second video titled “Austin Tice Still Alive” was posted on a pro-government web page, in which Mr. Tice is being hustled along a rocky mountainside by what is meant to appear to be a group of Islamist militants. They force Mr. Tice to recite, in clumsy Arabic, a prayer Muslims say before dying, after which, breathless and distraught, he says in English: “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” There were doubts at the time about the authenticity of the video, in part because the captors did not behave as militants usually do.
Without offering any evidence, other pro-regime news sources subsequently posted messages describing Mr. Tice as an Israeli agent or accusing him of killing three Syrian officers. But there has been no contact with his captors.
Mr. Tice’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice, are convinced he is alive and have worked tirelessly for his release, traveling several times to Lebanon, putting pressure on every diplomat and official they can, organizing special events to keep his fate in the public eye. The State Department has said it is operating on the presumption that Mr. Tice is alive, and it has been working through the Czech Embassy in Damascus (the United States Embassy is closed) to press the Syrian government for information. The F.B.I. has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his return, and journalism organizations such as Reporters Without Borders and the National Press Club have joined in campaigning for Mr. Tice’s freedom.
Mr. Tice was not a combatant. He was a journalist who went to Syria to report on the plight of people in a terrible civil war. That he was a freelance contributor makes no difference — his self-assigned mission was the same as that of all journalists who confront the enormous dangers of conflict, hostile governments and rapacious bandits to let the world know what is really happening. According to Reporters Without Borders, 239 journalists and 17 of their assistants are currently known to be imprisoned for their work.
Mr. Tice has already paid heavily for his honorable efforts. Demands for his release must not cease until he is free.
Houston restaurants will raise funds for a kidnapped journalist
April 17, 2019 – On May 2, Chris Shepherd’s Georgia James, One Fifth Mediterranean, and UB Preserv will participate in a national fundraiser for Austin Tice, a Houston-born journalist who has been held captive in Syria since 2012. According to Houstonia, the event organized by the National Press Club involves more than 50 restaurants across the Untied States and beyond, all of which will donate a portion of proceeds to a fund that will be added to the $1 million reward offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “information leading to Tice’s safe return to the U.S.”
The Big Picture with Olivier Knox, SiriusXM – P.O.T.U.S, February 12, 2019
We thank Congressman Al Green and his co-sponsors Representative Henry Cuellar, Representative Vincente Gonzalez, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Representative Ruben Gallego and Representative Bobby L. Rush for introducing this Resolution in the first session of the 116th Congress. We encourage others to express their thanks to them as well!
1ST SESSION H. RES. 17
Expressing concern over the detention of Austin Tice, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 3, 2019
Mr. GREEN of Texas submitted the following resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence (Permanent Select), for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
RESOLUTION
Expressing concern over the detention of Austin Tice, and
for other purposes.
Whereas Austin Tice is a 37-year-old veteran, having served
in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer, a Georgetown
law student, and a graduate of Georgetown University,
from Houston, Texas;
Whereas Austin is an Eagle Scout, National Merit Scholarship finalist, and eldest of seven children;
Whereas Austin was a contributing freelance journalist to
McClatchy Newspapers, the Washington Post and other
media outlets and a recipient of the 2012 George Polk
Award for War Reporting;
Whereas, in May 2012, Austin crossed the Turkey-Syria border to report on the intensifying conflict in Syria;
Whereas, on August 11, 2012, Austin celebrated his 31st
birthday in Darayaa, Syria;
Whereas, on August 14, 2012, Austin departed for Beirut,
Lebanon, was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus,
Syria, and contact with family, friends, and colleagues
ceased;
Whereas, in late September 2012, a video clip appeared on
YouTube showing Austin blindfolded and being prodded
up a hillside by masked militants;
Whereas in the more than 2,300 days since Austin’s disappearance, no group has claimed responsibility for his
capture;
Whereas the Syrian government has never acknowledged detaining Austin and has denied the same to Austin’s parents;
Whereas officials of the United States believe Austin is alive
and the government of Bashar al-Assad or a group affiliated with it is holding him;
Whereas Austin Tice’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice, have
been diligent in their efforts to find their son, repeatedly
meeting with senior officials of the United States Government, the Syrian government, the United Nations, and
many others;
Whereas the Tices have traveled to the Middle East multiple
times, most recently in December 2018, seeking Austin’s
safe release, and Debra Tice spent four months living in
Damascus, Syria, for the same purpose;
Whereas the Tices have partnered with Reporters Without
Borders to launch campaigns with nearly 270 newspapers
and media organizations, highlighting Austin’s case in
their publications and on their websites;
Whereas institutions and organizations including Georgetown
University, Georgetown Law Center, the National Press
Club, the Committee to Protect Journalists, McClatchy,
and the Washington Post have collaborated to raise and
maintain public awareness of Austin’s detention; and
Whereas, on November 13, 2016, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Robert C. O’Brien,
said that the United States Government believes Austin
Tice is alive: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) expresses its ongoing concern regarding the
capture of Austin Tice near Damascus, Syria, in August 2012, and his continuing detention;
(2) encourages the Department of State, the intelligence community, and the interagency Hostage
Recovery Fusion Cell to jointly continue investigations and to pursue all possible information regarding Austin’s detention;
(3) encourages the Department of State and
the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs
to engage directly with officials of the Syrian government to facilitate Austin’s safe release and return;
(4) encourages the Department of State to
work with foreign governments known to have diplomatic influence with the Government of Syria; and
(5) requests that the Department of State and
the intelligence community continue to work with
and inform Congress and the family of Austin Tice
regarding efforts to secure Austin’s safe release and
return from detention in Syria.
The Associated Press
Parents of US journalist missing in Syria hopeful about fate
Marc and Debra Tice told reporters in Beirut that they have met U.S. officials including President Donald Trump and “they have each made a commitment to us that they’re determined to bring Austin home safely.”
Marc Tice said he was aware of 17 Americans that the administration had brought back from captivity or detention.
Austin Tice, of Houston, Texas, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus on Aug. 14, 2012, shortly after his 31st birthday. A video released a month later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men, saying “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since.
“We’re incredibly encouraged, and we’ve spent many hours, many days meeting all the senior officials in the United States government from the president down over the course of a number of months,” Marc Tice said.
Debra Tice said they were recently contacted by a number of credible individuals “who have shared information about Austin,” but she declined to elaborate.
Their comments came two weeks after U.S. envoy to Syria James Jeffrey said Tice is believed to be alive and held hostage in Syria. He didn’t say why officials believe this or who might be holding him.
In April, federal authorities for the first time offered a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to Tice, a former Marine who has reported for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers, CBS and other outlets.
It’s not clear what entity is holding him, and no ransom demand has ever been made. An FBI poster released this year urges people to report any information that could lead to his location, recovery or return. The White House envoy for hostage affairs, Robert O’Brien, said last month that the administration is working to bring him home.
“What the president communicated to us was an absolute commitment to work very hard to bring Austin safely home,” Marc Tice said.
Parents of Austin Tice still fighting to bring their son home
Six years ago, American journalist went missing in Syria, but his parents hope US can secure his return.
Beirut, Lebanon – It was a Friday when Marc Tice received the call he dreaded.
“Are you sitting down,” the voice on the other end asked.
Marc’s son Austin, a freelance journalist, had been reporting from Syria and was scheduled to reach neighbouring Lebanon the previous Tuesday, but he had not been in touch.
Marc was anxious to hear from Austin, but when the phone finally rang, it was an official from the United States‘ State Department on the line.
The official informed Marc that Austin was missing. He had been picked up from a checkpoint near the Syrian capital, Damascus, on August 14, 2012, the day he intended to leave the country.
Since that call, made “six years, three weeks and a few days ago,” says Austin’s mother Debra, she and her husband have not rested.
They are currently on their eighth visit to Beirut, where they are knocking on doors and searching for clues which might lead them to their son. The Lebanese capital is about a two-hour drive from Damascus, and the closest city the Tices can reach while they search for Austin.
Debra hopes to obtain a visa from the Syrian authorities to allow her to move the search closer to the location where he was last seen.
On this trip, they feel more optimistic. The visit comes soon after a top official for hostage recovery in the Trump administration said the “US government believes Austin is alive”.
 |
| Marc and Debra Tice hope the Syrian and the American governments will work together to free Austin [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo] |
The parents have flown in to put pressure on their government and, hopefully, to be heard by those in Syria they believe are holding Austin captive. No one has come forward to claim responsibility for his abduction.
The Tice family doesn’t know who exactly was responsible – and doesn’t care to know either. They are cautious, carefully weighing their words so as not to offend any side of the conflict. To them, it is not who has abducted Austin, but who returns him, that matters.
First denial, then a relentless search
Given a chance, every parent can expound on the achievements of their child. Marc and Debra Tice are no different. At a restaurant in Beirut, they talk about Austin’s skills, taking quick turns so that nothing is missed.
“He was first published when he was nine,” says Debra.
“He has always known what was important in life,” adds Marc.
“He is such a good swing dancer, he makes any woman dancing with him look beautiful,” Debra jumps in, gushing with pride.
During the first year of Austin’s absence, until late 2013, the family was in a state of disbelief. Every morning, they thought there would be a knock on the door and Austin would simply walk in.
Then, Marc and Debra decided that Austin was coming back. They just needed to play their part and ensure the Syrian and American governments were listening to them.
On their journey, they have established connections with hundreds of people in Lebanon, in Deraya – the Syrian suburb from which Austin had taken a taxi to cross into Lebanon when he went missing – and the US administration.
They started keeping “piles and piles of notebooks”, Debra says, to retrace his steps and understand what might have happened to their son. They connected with the families of other hostages and received sympathetic messages from other Americans freed in the past, including some who languished in the American embassy in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis.
 |
| Debra Tice says that Austin’s proof of life video was a missed opportunity [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters] |
“We had joined the horrible club, which no one must be a part of,” says Debra.
Being a parent of the missing brings its own changes to social life and routine. The couple’s friendships went awry because their friends didn’t know what to say to them, how to say it or how to help. They didn’t know what to offer, while Marc and Debra did not know what to expect.
“I go to the market and see these faces. I want to say – ‘look, I am here just for the tomatoes’,” Debra says.
It has been hard, they admit, but nothing compared with what their son must be enduring.
Austin’s proof of life came from a 40-second video posted online, a fortnight after he went missing. Marc and Debra Tice call it a missed opportunity.
“Every pixel of that video was seen and analysed. Who are the people? Is it fake or authentic? I know that was my son. I want to thank those who posted it because they were telling us Austin was alive. But why did no one say, contact them and begin a dialogue?” Debra says.
Can Trump bring back the American journalist?
The Tice family, from Houston, Texas, has now pinned their expectations on US President Donald Trump. For them, he is a president who walks the talk, and cares about the end result over protocol.
He has built a reputation for rescuing kidnapped Americans, they say, among them, Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student detained in North Korea.
In that extraordinary case, the Trump administration succeeded in bringing him home, though he was comatose and fatally sick from a never-explained brain trauma, and died shortly afterwards.
Following his death, Trump tweeted: “Otto’s fate deepens my Administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.”
Marc and Debra are buying into the president’s words. They are convinced that Trump can and will strike some sort of a deal or understanding which facilitates Austin’s return.
They are also, through every press conference and interview, reaching out to the Syrian government. They hope, perhaps naively, that the two governments can forget their disagreements for the sake of an innocent life.
Debra visited Syria in 2014 and 2015. She walked through the souks of the capital city with a photograph of Austin, asking if anyone had seen him. She tried her best to seek help from senior figures in the Syrian government at a time when the US was backing the Syrian opposition forces.
On the record at least, President Bashar al-Assad‘s government has assured the Tice family that they are doing everything they can to find Austin. Does Debra believe the assurances? “I can’t not believe,” she says.
‘Austin meets us in our dreams’
Marc, Debra and Austin are caught up between complicated geopolitical calculations. Yet the parents are firm that they will not be defeated.
Deep in their minds, they say, their religious faith, as well as their love for their son and each other, sustain them.
At the end of the day, when Marc feels down, Debra carries on with a smile. They take turns.
“Austin is definitely coming home,” Marc says. “He meets us in our dreams.”
Debra describes one such meeting. “I am standing at the door, as I do, and there he is, Austin. He says, ‘Mom, now don’t make a big deal. I am back, shall we go inside?'”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS
Missing American reporter Austin Tice is believed to be alive, says U.S. official
By CBS NEWS November 14, 2018, 3:55 PM
The U.S. government strongly believes Austin Tice, a Marine-turned-reporter who vanished in Syria in the summer of 2012, is alive and being held captive in the war-torn Middle Eastern country, according to a senior State Department official.
“I want to make it very clear that the United States government believes Austin Tice is alive,” U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert O’Brien told reporters on Tuesday. “We are deeply concerned about his well-being after six years of captivity.”
In an event hosted by the National Press Club, O’Brien said the State Department is spearheading an investigative and diplomatic multinational effort to locate the missing journalist and secure his release. The special envoy called on the Russian government — which has provided significant financial and military assistance to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad — to take part in this humanitarian cause.
“There are plenty of areas of disagreements between the United States and Russia at this time,” O’Brien said. “One of the things that both Russia and the United States should agree on is that innocent Americans, or innocent Russians for that matter, should not be held hostage and should not be held against their will.”
Since 2011, Syria has been embroiled in a bloody and convoluted war involving forces loyal to President Al-Assad, moderate rebel groups, Iranian-backed Hezbollah cells, ISIS and Russian and American military units.
Tice, a former Marine Corps captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, traveled to Syria in the spring of 2012 to document the nation’s then-young civil war as a freelance reporter before starting his final year at Georgetown Law School. After filing award-winning reports for various outlets — including McClatchy, The Washington Post and CBS News — Tice disappeared in Aug. 14, 2012.
Five weeks after his disappearance, a video surfaced showing an alive and blindfolded Tice surrounded by a group of unidentified armed militants.
In April of this year, when the FBI announced a $1 million reward for information “leading directly to the safe location, recovery, and return” of Tice, CBS News reported that although some believe he was captured by Syrian regime forces or pro-government militias, the circumstances surrounding Tice’s disappearance remained a mystery.
Although he said he could not disclose intelligence information that supported the government’s assessment that Tice was alive, O’Brien, the State Department envoy, highlighted the fitness of the combat veteran as a beneficial characteristic during this type of ordeal.
“He’s got the toughness of a Marine. And I’m sure that’s sustaining him through these incredibly trying circumstances,” he said.
O’Brien noted that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been “intimately” and “actively” involved in the case and added that, along with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and National Security Adviser John Bolton, America’s chief diplomat has met with Tice’s parents, Marc and Deborah Tice, on several occasions to brief the couple on any new developments.
Before the end of the year, Marc and Deborah Tice will undertake their seventh trip to the Middle East to apply for a visa to enter Syria. There, the couple hopes to be closer to Tice and reach out to whomever may be holding him captive.
“We continue our relentless effort to find the key that will open the door for Austin’s freedom,” Mr. Tice said.
Trump Administration: Effort to return captured journalist counts on U.S. reporters
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
NOVEMBER 12, 2018 09:00 PM,
UPDATED NOVEMBER 13, 2018 11:18 AM
By McClatchy
WASHINGTON
The Trump administration, known for its public feuds with the media who cover it, on Tuesday joined with major media organizations seeking to bring home missing foreign journalist Austin Tice.
Tice disappeared more than six years ago reporting on government turmoil in war-torn Syria.
Speaking at the National Press Club Tuesday, Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, Robert O’Brien, said the administration believes Tice is alive, and White House officials are working with journalists and news organizations seeking to bring him home.
“We have great FBI agents that have been following every lead, every clue that we can discover about Austin,” said O’Brien. “But journalists have been working their own networks and have been bringing leads and information to us, and we are grateful for that.”
O’Brien said Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been “intimately involved” in Tice’s case, and that the administration is “deeply concerned” about his well-being after years of being held captive.
“Pariah states like Iran, terrorist organizations around the world continue to take Americans hostage or unjustly detained… because they believe they can extract some sort of concession from the United States… and I can tell you that is not going to happen, “ said O’Brien.
“We are not going to be terrorized, our reporters are going to continue to go to the toughest places on earth and report,” he added.
Earlier this month Trump’s White House revoked press credentials for a CNN reporter — once again igniting the tense relationship between American media and a president who referred to it as the “enemy of the American People.”
O’Brien was joined by Tuesday by Tice’s father, Marc Tice, as well as McClatchy President and CEO Craig Forman, McClatchy Company Chairman Kevin McClatchy, National Press Club President Andrea Edney and officials from the Washington Post and Reporters Without Borders.
They detailed plans for a “Night Out For Austin Tice” on May 2 to raise money for a cash reward for information leading to Tice’s safe return.
The effort involves restaurant partners who will donate a portion of their profits from customers who patronize their establishments on the eve of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. The day has been designated by the United Nations to remind governments of their agreement to support and protect the right to free expression.
The FBI has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Austin Tice’s safe return. Proceeds from the “Night Out For Austin Tice” aim to add enough to double the reward to $2 million.
O’Brien is a California lawyer who served as an attorney for the U.S. Army Corps Reserves.. Earlier this year he was tapped by the Trump administration to help bring home American hostages held overseas, including journalists like Tice.
The position was created by President Barack Obama in 2015. Tice’s parents told McClatchy in August, however, that the current White House has been a more aggressive partner in working to bring their son home. They spoke personally with Trump at a dinner honoring Washington media earlier this year.
“We know it’s important to [Trump] to bring Americans safely home,” Debra Tice told McClatchy near the six year anniversary of her son’s disappearance in August.
Tice said that “we’re off to a good foot” with the administration.
Austin Tice, a native of Houston, Texas, and a former Marine, worked as a freelance journalist for the Washington Post and McClatchy while reporting from Syria.
He was detained en route from Syria to Lebanon on Aug. 14, 2012. He was last sighted six weeks after he was detained, in a video that showed him being guided up a rocky hill by a group of armed men.
National Press Club President Andrea Edney, left, and U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert C. O’Brien, right, speak at the National Press Club Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018.
Andrea Drusch is the Washington Correspondent for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She is a Corinth, Texas, native and graduate of the Bob Schieffer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University. She returns home frequently to visit family, get her fix of Fuzzy’s Tacos and cheer on the Horned Frogs.
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Debra Tice, Austin Tice’s mother, delivers remarks at the banner’s unveiling on Nov. 2.
Faith ~ Hope ~ Love
On July 19, we, Austin’s parents, met with President Obama in the Oval Office.
Our President is fully informed about Austin and personally involved in the ongoing efforts to secure his safe return. Mr. Obama assured us of his absolute commitment to see Austin safely home.
When he spoke of his preparedness to ensure that his successor will be fully briefed of the White House commitment to our son, we reminded him that he is Austin’s President and he must not even consider the possibility of leaving this undone.
Please join us in asking President Obama to use every appropriate and possible diplomatic opportunity to achieve Austin’s freedom.
Write or call United States officials asking them to remind President Obama that this is an important piece of his legacy – bringing Austin safely home is something which cannot be UNdone by any subsequent administration.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact#more
http://www.senate.gov/…/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
Sign the Petition
https://rsf.org/en/campaigns/free-austin-tice
Most importantly, please keep Austin in your thoughts and prayers until he is safely home. We continue to fervently pray, relentlessly work, and steadfastly believe Austin will be returned to his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. May it be soon.
In faith and friendship,
Debra and Marc Tice
#FreeAustinTice
June 22, 2016
4 hostage families make a plea: Bring home Austin Tice
An essay by Diane and John Foley, parents of James Foley; Ed and Paula Kassig, parents of Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig; Carl, Marsha and Eric Mueller, parents and brother of Kayla Mueller; Shirley and Arthur Sotloff, parents of Steven Sotloff.
One year ago this week, following the torture and killing of two of our American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and two of our American humanitarian aid workers, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller, President Barack Obama made a commitment to improve our government’s dismal record on the return of American hostages.
The president ordered a new government hostage policy, accompanied by a presidential policy directive, representing a much-needed effort to clarify and coordinate the government’s response to hostage-taking. The directive outlines the processes by which “the United States Government will work in a coordinated effort to leverage all instruments of national power to recover U.S. nationals held hostage abroad, unharmed.”
Austin, a freelance journalist, Marine veteran and Georgetown law student, has been held hostage in Syria since August 2012. His safe return will satisfy a significant and necessary measure of the success of the new policy. Austin is the only American reporter being held hostage anywhere in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders. At the recent White House correspondents’ dinner, President Obama committed “to fight for the release of American journalists held against their will.” We were stunned and disheartened when the president chose not to refer by name to Austin, the only American news journalist being held against his will.
We, the family of Kayla Mueller, are haunted every day by the fact that we didn’t secure Kayla’s release, by the extraordinary hope she held during her terrifying captivity, by the horrific torture we now know she endured, by the missed opportunities and by the deadly silence that cost all the hostages their lives. Our hearts are broken and our hope is that our government will do all it is able to bring Austin and all hostages home safely. No additional U.S. citizens should have to endure the silence of our country, with that silence filled only by the terrorists holding them.
We, the family of the late journalist Steven Sotloff, remind President Obama of the following: You told us in person that if it were your daughters, you would do anything in your power to bring them home. We implore you: Bring Austin Tice home.
We, the parents of James Foley, say: Mr. President, after the horrific executions of our son James Foley and the other courageous Americans, you agreed with us that America could do better! We are counting on you to keep your promise by bringing Austin Tice home before you leave office!
We, the parents of Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, are devastated by the loss of our son, but the pain will be slightly lessened if his death helps bring Austin and others home. Jim, Steven, Peter and Kayla sacrificed all in their efforts to better the lives of others. As President Obama himself noted, they stood for the greatest of American ideals. One of the lessons we have learned is that the pain of the family and friends of the hostage increases tremendously as time passes without resolution. It requires mountain-moving faith to maintain hope as the crisis continues. With unwavering hope, Austin’s parents do not give up. The United States government must not give up.
The Syrian conflict is horrific and tragic, its resolution complex and uncertain. Every diplomatic effort to address the conflict is fraught with uncertainty. Nevertheless, this uncertainty is not a reason to hesitate in leveraging all appropriate means to secure Austin’s safe release and return.
We are not asking the White House to put anyone in harm’s way, nor compromise national security. We are asking the president, fully within the responsibilities and obligations of his office, to put aside any personal or election year concern, to engage boldly and to use all appropriate means to bring Austin Tice safely home as soon as possible.
EDITORS’ NOTE
Austin Tice, now 34, was working as a freelance journalist for McClatchy and The Washington Post when he was taken captive in Syria in August 2012.
Four American hostage families have joined with Austin’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice of Houston, on the anniversary of President Barack Obama’s hostage policy directive to make an appeal to the president. Obama’s directive clarified that the government “may itself communicate with hostage-takers, their intermediaries, interested governments and local communities to attempt to secure the safe recovery of the hostage.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article85218092.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article85218092.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article85218092.html#storylink=cpy
April 19, 2016
Georgetown Students Rally at White House for Austin Tice
April 18, 2016
Demonstrators urge freedom for missing journalist Austin Tice
November 25, 2015
Thank you to Conor McEvily, for this article which articulates so much about Austin’s character, and why we miss him even more keenly when our family gathers for special occasions.
NE Loop 610 @ McCarty Rd, Houston
October, 2015
The Road to Damascus
In 2012 Houston native Austin Tice heeded a calling to become a journalist in war-ravaged Syria. His photographs, stories, and tweets shed new light on the conflict—until one day they stopped.
Austin as an Eagle Scout.
Austin reporting in Al Tal.
Marc and Debra Tice, at their home, in Houston.August 19, 2015
The Lonestar Weekly
Home / Press / The Lonestar Weekly
Texas’ Austin Tice: Captive Three Years
Aug 19 2015
A little more than three years ago, Houston-native Austin Tice was taken captive in Syria. His many accolades include Eagle Scout, Marine, and journalist, but his more important titles are friend, brother, and son.
Austin’s family is not just counting the days and minutes he’s been gone, but they’re counting the milestones missed over the past three years, too.
I renew my call for Austin’s immediate release by his captors and strongly urge the Obama Administration to utilize all possible means necessary to bring Austin home safely. I’ve recently introduced legislation establishing an Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator to create a unified government response to hostage situations like Austin’s.
While nothing can undo the pain he and his loved ones have endured, as a nation we must do everything we possibly can to find Austin and bring this Texan home.
Photo Courtesy the Tice Family
August 12, 2015
July 31, 2015
June 24, 2015
May 12, 2015
May 3, 2015
Debra Tice speaks at Celebration of World Press Freedom Day and 30th Anniversary of Reporters without Borders in Paris
May 3, 2015 L’OBS (France) Interview: Debra Tice: “I wanted to see people in the streets demanding the release of my son”
May 1, 2015
April 28, 2015
University of Houston ‘Cougar’: #FreeAustinTice: Parents of UH alumnus kidnapped in Syria speak at University
April 27, 2015
April 23, 2015
Freelancer Austin Tice, detained in Syria, to receive Aubuchon Press Freedom Award
April 23, 2015 | By John Donnelly | jdonnelly@cq.com
American freelance reporter Austin Tice, detained in Syria since 2012, will receive one of the club’s most prestigious honors.
The club will give Tice a John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award at its annual awards dinner July 29. The Aubuchon award recognizes those whose work has demonstrated the courage that lies at the heart of a free press.
Tice joins Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter detained in Iran, as recipients of the Club’s domestic freedom of the press award this year. The club announced Rezaian’s award on March 12. The Club also recognizes a foreign journalist annually.
Tice, a freelance reporter, left home for Syria in May 2012 to tell the story of the conflict in that country and its impact on the ordinary people there. His work was published by McClatchy Newspapers, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, AFP and others.
In August 2012, Tice disappeared near Damascus. It still remains uncertain who holds him, but he is believed to be alive and not held by the Islamic State militant group, according to credible sources.
“Austin Tice embodies the best of our profession, and whoever is jailing him represents the worst of the many threats to journalism,” Club President John Hughes said. “In giving this award, we want to particularly make sure the world remembers Tice and the other freelancers who often work in dangerous places without adequate support and protection.”
Hughes announced the award at the start of a half-day program today at the club to discuss baseline standards for protecting freelance journalists who work in war zones. The club’s Journalism Institute, the Investigative Reporting Workshop and the Committee to Protect Journalists are holding the event.
Tice’s parents thanked the club for the honor.
“This is an important recognition that both Jason and Austin are being held because of their commitment to gather, record and report the news,” Tice’s parents said. “With them, we believe that freedom of information and expression is a self-evident unalienable right belonging to every person. We earnestly hope and pray Austin and Jason will be here in July to personally accept this prestigious award.”
April 18, 2015
Time: How should the United States act during hostage situations? by Jane Greenway Carr of New America
April 6, 2015
April 14, 2015
Georgetown University hosts week of campus
activities for #FreeAustinTice awareness campaign
WUSA 9 Washington DC: Georgetown draws attention to missing alum
March 27, 2015
The Hoya – Georgetown University Student Newspaper Editorial
March 27, 2015
Wall Street Journal: US in discussions with Syria over missing journalist Austin Tice
March 20, 2015
Many thanks to the Newseum in Washington D.C. for including Austin in its compelling exhibit on risks to journalists
February 21, 2015
Washington Post – “Families hope…US review will make a difference”
February 19, 2015
McClatchyDC – #FreeAustinTice Campaign Kicks Off
February 18, 2015
The Houston Chronicle – St. John Barned-Smith
February 18, 2015
Fox News.com – Article by Cristina Corbin
February 17, 2015
KUHF Houston – Social Media Campaign Launches
February 16, 2015
Houston Chronicle – Captive journalist’s parents join blindfold photo campaign
February 16, 2015
USA Today
February 16, 2015
CNN International – Robyn Curnow Interview
February 15, 2015
Los Angeles Times
February 13, 2015
Megan Specia – Mashable
February 13, 2015
Gretchen Carlson: The Real Story – Fox Interview
February 13, 2015
February 13, 2015
February 13, 2015
Washington Post
February 12, 2015
Radio France Internationale (RFI) Interview (link)
February 12, 2015
February 12, 2015
Laura Haim – Canal Plus- I tele French TV
February 11, 2015
February 11, 2015
MSNBC – NOW with Alex Wagner
February 11, 2015
February 11, 2015
ABC Channel 13 Houston – Sonia Azad
February 10, 2015
CNN – Brooke Baldwin
February 10, 2015
USA Today
February 9, 2015
CNN – Erin Burnett Out Front
February 7, 2015
Newsweek: Family of Kidnapped American Journalist Austin Tice Launches Campaign for His Return From Syria
February 6, 2015
February 6, 2015
February 5, 2015
Houston Chronicle: Parents of hostage Austin Tice take his plight to Washington
February 5, 2015
February 5, 2015
February 4, 2015
Houston Chronicle: Houston mother of hostage wants a new look at U.S. policy
February 4, 2015
January 19, 2015
Parents of Kidnapped American Journalist Austin Tice Speak Out (link to video)
January 14, 2015
Parents of Kidnapped U.S. Journalist Austin Tice on Their Struggle to Free Son from Syria Captivity (link to video)
December 6, 2014
American journalists deserve our support, respect
Thank you to Kelli Arena, who holds the Dan Rather Chair of Broadcast Journalism at Sam Houston State University, for her article discussing the importance of American journalism, and addressing questions about Austin and others who choose to report from parts of the world in upheaval.
This work is indeed necessary if we are to be an informed people. If we desire to exercise our voice in the policies and actions of our country, we must be informed about the details of the situations on which our government is acting – this information is what journalists like Austin strive to provide.
We would also add that the use of government resources to help Americans in trouble overseas is not a new phenomenon, and is in fact a long-standing, significant function of government. Many elements of the US government, including the State Department (Overseas Citizens Services) and the FBI (Office for Victim Assistance), operate offices with the mission of helping US citizens – journalists, tourists, business people and others – who find themselves in difficulties in other countries.
November 23, 2014
NPR Interview: Families Feel Sidelined As U.S. Reviews Hostage Policy
November 10, 2014
Our sincere thanks to Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post for mentioning Austin and making an impassioned statement on the threats to journalists and journalism.
WaPo’s Martin Baron Delivers Keynote Address at ICFJ’s Awards Dinner
September 25, 2014
By Sonia Azad
Thursday, September 25, 2014
HOUSTON (KTRK) —
Marc and Debra Tice are in the fight of their lives.
“We’d love to hear his voice, to communicate with him,” said Marc Tice. “Every time the phone rings, we hope it’s Austin calling for a ride.”
Their son Austin, a former U.S. Marine, Georgetown law student and freelance journalist was captured two years ago in a suburb of Damascus, Syria.
“We have no reason to believe he’s held with ISIS,” his father told us in a one-on-one interview. Austin’s mother continued, “Early on, we decided that to try to speculate was just another way of wasting energy. Instead of trying to figure it out, we would just like to know.”
The Houston couple has sent messages to Syria through intermediaries, and hope Austin is somewhere safe, watching and hearing everything.
“We hear through credible sources that we should not worry, that he is alive and he is safe and he is not ill-treated and we need to be patient,” said Debra Tice. Her husband added, “At the same time, they never come with any proof, or evidence, anything concrete, anyone to contact directly, and that’s what we’re really looking for.”
Through airstrike campaigns led by the U.S. government and a series of recent gruesome beheadings of other American journalists, the Tices are frustrated with the pace and process to get their son back. Still, 773 days into their fight, they hold on to hope.
“We always hope that any changes in what’s going on (in Syria) will create an opportunity for a channel of communication or for someone – whoever it is that’s holding Austin-to decide things are different now, and we’ll send this boy home.”
Austin’s parents are encouraging their friends and neighbors in Houston to communicate with President Barack Obama the importance of seeing Austin get safely back home.
Map My News
September 24, 2014
September 23, 2014
September 23, 2014
Parents of U.S. journalist who went missing in Syria want answers
By Ashley Fantz, Ed Lavandera and Elwyn Lopez, CNN
updated 10:18 PM EDT, Tue September 23, 2014
(Link to Story) Thanks to Ed Lavandera, Elwyn Lopez and their crew
September 23, 2014
September 18, 2014
Thank you to our Congressman, the Honorable Al Green, for bringing Austin’s plight to the floor of the US House of Representatives.
September 10, 2014
September 10, 2014
September 10, 2014
September 10, 2014
August 17, 2014
Thank you Bryan Wendell and Scouting magazine for sharing Austin’s story with his fellow Scouts:
Eagle Scout journalist has been missing in Syria for two years
August 15, 2014
Our thanks to Jonathan Hunt who shares Austin’s story on Fox News:
Fox News.com “On the Hunt” with Jonathan Hunt
August 14, 2014
Houston Public Media’s “Houston Matters” shares our thoughts. Thanks to Craig Cohen and all the team at Houston Public Media
Houston Public Media – Houston Matters
August 14, 2014
We are grateful to our hometown newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, for devoting so much of their content today to Austin, and for doing so in such a professional and compassionate way.
Houston Family holds out hope for son missing in Syria-article
Houston Family: We won’t give up hope for captive son– opinion piece
August 14, 2014
Thank you to CBS News for this Article
August 14, 2014
Many thanks to our dear friends and Austin’s fantastic colleagues at McClatchy News for their unwavering support. McClatchy DC
Our thanks also to The Washington Post, whose management and staff have been steadfast with resources, advice and support from the beginning. Thank you. The Washington Post
August 11, 2014
Thank you to Fox 26 Houston KRIV Television and Randy Wallace for sharing Austin’s story on his 33rd Birthday:
Area couple facing two years with no word from missing journalist son
We thank the Senator for speaking on Austin’s behalf, and for his steadfast commitment to bring Austin safely home.
December 22, 2013
Parents of reporter missing in Syria plead for newsBy Sara Hussein (AFP) – Jul 5, 2013
BEIRUT — Debra Tice wakes up each morning hoping her life will have changed and the 11 months since her son Austin disappeared in Syria will turn out to have been a bad dream.
But since she and her husband Marc learnt that their 31-year-old first-born had gone missing while reporting in the war-torn country, not a single morning has given her that relief.
“I just wake up and think, I woke up again and nothing has changed, it wasn’t a dream,” she told AFP in Beirut, where she and her husband are looking for information about their missing child.
“I put my feet on the floor and I build a wall around my emotions and I just think about what strength I need for today,” she added.
Austin Tice was in law school in the United States when he decided to head to Syria last year to try to kickstart a journalism career.
He contributed to the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers, among others, and was awarded a prestigious Polk award after his disappearance in August 2012.
Since then, his parents and his six brothers and sisters have had almost no information about him.
In September, a video showing him purportedly being held by radical Islamists surfaced, but questions were raised about whether those shown in the video were really militants, and Marc Tice says the recording “raised more questions than it answered”.
Still, he says, the video proved their son was still alive — a rare moment of relief in an otherwise agonising search for information that has included two trips to the region and numerous meetings with anyone who will talk to them.
“We will meet with anybody,” Debra says. “If you tell me a taxi driver on a street corner in the middle of nowhere knows how to get my son home, I will go meet with him.”
“We would go to Damascus, if it was purposeful, if we were invited,” adds Marc.
US officials believe Tice is being held by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which is fighting an armed rebellion triggered by a bloody crackdown on democracy protests that broke out in March 2011.
The Tices say the Syrian government denies any record of their son being in the country, but has agreed to search for him.
“Honestly, we’re not that interested in who or why, we’re interested in how do we get him back, what is needed to return him to us safely,” Marc says.
As part of their search, the family has set up a website, www.austinticefamily.com, where anyone with information can contact them.
And they urge their son’s captors to reach out.
“We ask you to keep him safe, take care of him, let him know that he’s loved and people are looking for him and especially let us know how we can bring him home again.”
In the meanwhile, Tice’s family are trying to lead something approaching a normal life, celebrating birthdays and graduations.
“You can just never really give your heart fully to joy, because there’s this ‘where’s our big guy?’ feeling,” Debra says.
“He’s so profoundly missing for us.”
The separation is particularly hard for Debra, who homeschooled her seven children.
“The only thing I ever wanted to do was to be a mummy of lots of kids!” she laughs.
Tice is one of at least seven reporters missing in Syria, including James Foley, an American video contributor to AFP who has not been heard from since last November.
The Tices say they have reached out to the families of other missing reporters to share information and support.
“It’s a club that the membership price is very steep, no one wants to join,” Debra says quietly.
She thinks often about how she will react when she is reunited with Austin.
“You know that feeling when your child lets go of your hand in the mall?” she says with a smile.
“You’re frantic and you’re looking, and then you find them, and first you hug them and then you spank them? It’s that kind of reaction.”
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
July 03, 2013
Karen Leigh (@leighstream) – Syria Deeply – July 03, 2013
In Beirut, A Family’s Search for Austin Tice
On August 13, 2012, Austin Tice, a 31-year-old American journalist writing for McClatchy newswires, the Washington Post and other publications vanished without a trace from the Damascus suburb where he’d been living and working.
Tice, a former USMC infantry officer, had put his law studies at Georgetown University on hold to cover the Syrian conflict.
In May, Global Post, investigating the disappearance of one of its own freelance reporters, James Foley, said it believed Foley, along with at least one other American journalist (widely believed to be Tice) was being held by the Syrian regime in the vicinity of the capital.
On a fact-finding visit to Beirut this week, Austin’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice, talked with Syria Deeply.
Syria Deeply: You had to be nervous when he said, “I’m moving to Syria.”
Marc: Going back to when he told us that he was going to go to Syria in the first place, if you know Austin, you know that he’s not reckless, he’s incredibly thoughtful, he’s not impulsive. He’s also incredibly passionate and determined, and when he decides he needs to do something, that’s what he’s going to do. He didn’t go lightly. He talked to a lot of people before he went. He does have training. He’s not new to areas of crisis. So we had that confidence. On the other hand, of course you’re concerned.
Debra: But I still get concerned when he’s home and rides his bike without a helmet.
Austin Tice / Courtesy Tice Family
Marc: Or the motorcycle he bought.
Debra: Oh my gosh.
Marc: We learned a long time ago not to talk him out of something. We try to ask whatever questions we can ask to make sure he’s thought of anything. What advice do we have to give him about journalism in Syria? We don’t have any.
Debra: My personality – Austin was home-schooled – is that a job half-done is a job wholly undone. So for him to want to tell this story, he needed to do all he could to get the whole story. It was important to him to try to understand all sides of the story. He just wouldn’t be satisfied with half. It had to be all.
SD: Was it an anomaly not to hear from him?
Marc: If we didn’t Google chat or Facebook with him [personally], we saw where he had chatted or emailed or talked to somebody, and we know all the people he was talking to. So pretty much every day, we’d communicate with him or know he was communicating with someone. One time we didn’t hear from him for two days, and –
Debra: I knew that I was on very thin ice when I picked up the phone for the first time, found his editor’s name and number in a directory, and called and said, I know I’m going to be in really big trouble for this, but …
Marc: And sure enough, when he popped back up, he was furious. “That was so unprofessional! I don’t want my mom calling my editor!” But his editor was a bear of a guy with a big heart.
Debra: They’ve been stellar for us.
Marc: That was the only time we’d not been in touch or heard anything from him.
Debra: And then he really drilled it into us, you can’t be freaking out after five minutes of not hearing from me.
Marc: So then when it was three days, four days, we’d developed a good relationship with the people at McClatchy. Debbie was canoeing in the boundary waters in Minnesota, and I was at home. I called McClatchy, and they said, We haven’t heard from him either, and we’re concerned. We got a call back from the Washington bureau chief who said we’ve got word out, then we got a call from the State Department that they’d been alerted and were seeing what they could do. And every day since then has been, OK, tomorrow we’re going to hear from him, tomorrow he’ll be released.
Debra: Our phones are on all the time, with us.
SD: Were you aware of the risks faced in Syria by freelance journalists?
Marc: When he went, he had an arrangement with McClatchy. So we knew he had a shot – originally he was only going to do photos – and that there would be someone that would look at him and get him published. I didn’t think about insurance, support, backup. I do now. Because we’re connected to organizations like Reporters without Borders. I guess if we had known about all this, we would have asked those questions.
Debra: We knew Austin would know the questions to have asked.
Marc: I don’t worry about him knowing basic field first aid. Of course he does. And he’s big, tough and very smart.
SD: He won the Polk Award while missing. It’s arguably the most prestigious award a journalist can win for Syria coverage.
Debra: It was so affirming that he was on the right path and doing something he’s very gifted at. And on the other hand …
Marc: He will be, if he doesn’t know now, he will be thrilled. And McClatchy gave him their President’s Award. It’s a great thing, you want to celebrate, but you can’t really celebrate. It is affirming, for him and for us, I hope, confirming that he was there as a journalist, that’s what he was all about. And he wasn’t some crazy guy taking a flier. He was capable. He was a freelancer, but – he had a contract going in, he picked up a couple more when he was there, he won the Polk. He wasn’t looking for adventure. He was doing a job.
Debra: Before he left, when he was letting news outlets know that he was going, he was really adamant about personal interviews [with editors]. He really didn’t want to just have electronic relationships. He’s a firstborn son, Type A, driven, confident. In August, he started getting calls from the BBC, from CBS, saying, can you do a spot for us?
Marc: He felt trained and ready to be a photojournalist. And then his editor asked him to write a backstory on a photo. When he did, his editor said, “And now you will write an article.”
Debra: He will be thrilled and proud and happy to have been recognized for what he was doing. He was confident that he could do this, but he’d never done it before. Anytime you try your hand at something you haven’t done before professionally, succeeding is a thrill.
(The Tice family welcomes tips and information at www.austinticefamily.com.)
June 27, 2013
Parents of kidnapped American journalist in Syria urge his release
Al Arabiya – Thursday, 27 June 2013
Parents of a missing American journalist in Syria urged their son’s kidnappers to release him or hand over information on his status, in an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday.
The journalist, Austin Tice, was kidnapped from a Damascus suburb called Darya on Aug. 13, 2012.
The parents are currently in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, attempting to obtain any information they can on their son’s whereabouts.
Austin’s father said the family is receiving help from both the American and Syrian government, adding that Damascus promised the family they will help find the missing journalist.
BEIRUT: Ten months after their son went missing in Syria, Debra and Marc Tice say that while every day feels like a recurring nightmare they are still confident that they will be reunited one day. Getting ready to head to Beirut after having spent the summer reporting for the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers, Texas native Austin was kidnapped last August, two days after his 31st birthday.
His last tweet read, “Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by @taylorswift13. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.”
In September, a brief video clip emerged on a pro-Assad site of a blindfolded Austin, being led by a group of armed men shouting “Allahu Akbar,” but there has been doubt cast over whether these were genuine Islamists or Assad loyalists posing as such.
Speaking a month later, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that “to the best of our knowledge, we think he [Tice] is in Syrian government custody.” The Tices themselves said they would leave speculation up to others.
“We’re not particularly interested in the story of how and why. We’re just interested in getting him back,” Marc said in an interview with The Daily Star Wednesday.
The couple is back in Beirut to try and follow up on Austin’s case, having previously visited in November.
They chose to return now, they said, due to the rapid ground developments in Syria, and the changing situation in Beirut itself.
A renewed diplomatic push, namely by the U.S. and Russia for Geneva II peace talks, has also encouraged the Tices, even though it keeps being pushed back as the two sides squabble over the details.
“There is so much more international and diplomatic impetus happening now. Really all we have is our voice, and we want to make sure that it is heard,” Marc said.
The eldest of seven children, Austin was in the middle of a law degree when he decided to come to Syria to write, because, as Marc remembers, “he was hearing reports from Syria saying this is happening and that is happening but it can’t be confirmed because there really are no reporters on the ground. And he said, ‘You know, this is a story that the world needs to know about.’”
They are reticent to say they have made progress – “progress would be something tangible. Success is when we have him home again,” Marc said. The Tices say they are encouraged that while all the Syrian government originally said was, “We don’t have him and we don’t know where he is,” they have now vowed “to us that they will look for him and that they will hold him safe and release him to us.”
In a close-knit family, Austin’s absence “hangs over everything,” Marc said. The couple recounted all the birthdays and graduations he had already missed this year, but it is also the support of his younger siblings which is so vital to them now.
However, he said, “the days don’t get any easier.”
“It is unimaginable because you know, I wake up and realize it was not a nightmare. And so it’s just that feeling of – another day. Sometimes you don’t know if you’re waking or sleeping, because it’s so unreal,” Debra said.
But while so many other people would be angry in a similar situation, the Tices believe only in forgiveness.
“We’re asking for mercy and so when I feel my emotions tending in a negative way, I just think, I’m asking for mercy, so I just want to be a person who is very quick to give mercy,” Debra said.
Also, Marc said, in a conflict which has left around 100,000 dead and around 18,000 missing, and rendered nearly 2 million people refugees, they recognize that they are not the only ones to suffer.
“If we start getting angry or indignant,” Marc said, in the gentlest tones, “we’re humbled by the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been turned upside down. The refugees, the people that have lost their loved ones. Our pain, frustration, anger kind of pales in comparison to all of that.”
“Where does anger get us? Nowhere,” he added.
They would admit to being frustrated though, frustrated at the lack of a note or a call, from either Austin or his captors, “to know something definitive about how he is or where he is. But most importantly, when is he going to be back with us?” Marc asked.
However, the outpouring of support has been overwhelming, the Tices said, from those who worked with Austin to strangers and officials from the State Department.
Since disappearing, Austin has received two awards for his journalism – the George Polk Award for War Reporting and the McClatchy President’s Award for Journalism Excellence – but Marc and Debra could not attend because, “instead of celebration speeches, they became condolence speeches.”
The message that Austin’s parents want to spread now is that whoever is holding him has gained nothing from doing so, but that “there’s something to be gained from his release. And that’s what we’re trying to get across, and trying to do what we can to make that happen.”
“We have not yet touched the heart of the person holding him. So we have to keep asking, and make sure that our desire for his return, our request for mercy, gets to the right person,” Marc explained.
As Debra added, “There’s no manual for this. We wish there was but … we’re making this up as we go along, and asking for help.”
Anyone with details on the whereabouts of Austin Tice can contact the family at: information@austinticefamily.com.
June 20, 2013
Senators send letter to Secretary of State John Kerry
Senators Write Kerry about Missing Journalists
June 5, 2013
Parents of kidnapped journalist grateful for Pope’s words
By Kevin J. Jones
www.catholicnewsagency.com
Austin Tice. Courtesy of The Tice Family.
Houston, Texas, Jun 5, 2013 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The parents of kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice have appealed again for his release, voicing gratitude for Pope Francis’ words on behalf of all abducted victims in the Syrian conflict.
“It is a tremendous comfort to know the Holy Father is praying for the people of Syria, and that he has personally appealed to the humanity of kidnappers to release their victims,” Marc and Debra Tice of Houston, Texas told CNA June 3.
On Monday, Pope Francis denounced the “scourge of kidnapping” in Syria and appealed to captors’ humanity to free the victims. Those recently abducted in the country include two Orthodox Christian bishops.
The Pope’s message was personally relevant to the Tices, whose son Austin disappeared in August 2012 near the Damascus suburb of Daraya where he was reporting on the Syrian conflict. Austin, a 31-year-old former Marine Corps captain and Georgetown University graduate, was working as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy News Service.
The Tices said their son, the oldest of seven children, is “all Texan: big, loud and friendly.” They noted how his photographs of Syrians, especially local children, show “his respect for the humanity of the Syrian people.”
“From what we’ve heard, his respect was reciprocated,” they said. “You could hear in his voice how happily and deeply he was engaged in his work.”
Austin Tice has now been missing for more than nine months.
His parents do not know for certain who is holding him captive, and recent developments in the Syrian conflict could affect Austin’s future.
Debra Tice said that the situation of the Daraya area has recently been “very fluid” as opposition groups and the Syrian government contest control.
“We feel this could increase his chances of escape or rescue and ask everyone in the area to be aggressively searching for him in order to secure his safe return to us,” she explained.
“Additionally, the upcoming U.S.- and Russian-led peace talks scheduled in Geneva offer an opportunity for discussion by all parties regarding the release of captives.”
Marc Tice also saw some hopeful signs. “The best development in the past few months has been the commitment we’ve received from more than one Syrian official,” he said. “They’ve told us and others that the Syrian government will do everything it can to locate Austin and return him safely.
“We have been assured through many channels that Austin is alive and being treated well, yet we have no concrete evidence of who is holding him or how to secure his release and return.”
In September 2012 a 47-second video of the journalist was posted on a pro-Syrian government website and appears to implicate Islamic militants in the kidnapping. The clip shows Austin blindfolded in the custody of armed men as he tries to recite in Arabic the shahada or Muslim declaration of faith, the Associated Press reported. He then switches to English and says “Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”
Some critics of the video have said it appears to be staged, possibly by pro-Syrian government forces who want to discredit the opposition, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in December 2012.
The Czech embassy, which is representing the U.S. in Syria after its own embassy closed in 2011, in December said its sources believe Tice is being held captive by the Syrian government. The Syrian government, however, denied those reports.
Syria’s contradicting stories are part of what drew Austin Tice to the country. His father said he was among those who sought to find the truth about the two-year-old conflict between supporters and opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad.
“Austin told me he was frustrated by early reports out of Syria which couldn’t be confirmed because no verifiable reports were available,” Marc said.
“He told me he believed the story of this conflict needed to be told and that he believed he had the skills to do it. Considering the recognition and awards he’s received for his work, I’m inclined to believe he was right.”
Since his kidnapping, Tice has been awarded the George Polk Award for War Reporting and the McClatchy President’s Award for Journalism Excellence.
Austin’s parents said their son did not join them in converting to Catholicism in 1999, but he was raised with “a firm foundation in the Christian faith.”
“He has memorized a great deal of Holy Scripture and learned the Catechism,” his parents said. “He enjoyed listening to theological discussions on Christian radio. In times of stress and trouble, he relies on the unwavering love of God.”
Debra reflected that her faith has helped her during this time of uncertainty.
“I firmly believe God is in control and pray for His will to be done. I know it is God’s desire for all people to live in peace. I pray constantly for an outpouring of mercy to restore peace to our family, to Syria, the Levant, and the entire world,” she said.
She also noted the positive effect of knowing that people around the world are praying for Austin and the Tice family. “These prayers give us hope and strength; undoubtedly they are also a source of great comfort for our son.”
Marc said that the kidnapping of his son “has challenged the foundations on which my faith has been built – much of which I am sure needed to be challenged.”
“As a convert to Catholicism, I was especially drawn to the way the Church expressed faith as a journey, and how understanding and enlightenment was not necessarily a flash of brilliance, rather a life-long process. I trust this part of my journey will leave me not only changed but stronger,” he said.
Debra voiced her love in a message directed to her son, saying: “We work and pray daily for your safe return. Do not despair; remain steadfast in faith.”
Both parents urged their son’s captors to keep him safe and treat him well. “Have compassion on us and let him come home,” Marc said.
The Tice family asks anyone with information about Austin to contact them through their website, www.austinticefamily.com.
May 31, 2013
Missing Journalist Austin Tice’s Parents To Travel To Beirut
HOUSTON (AP) — Parents of a freelance journalist who disappeared while covering the Syrian civil war hope upcoming talks aimed at peace between the Syrian government and rebels will hasten his release.
In a statement issued through a family spokesman Thursday, Austin Tice’s parents said they plan to travel from Houston to Beirut soon “to reach more deeply into the region on behalf of our son.”
Marc and Debra Tice say they’re uncertain who is holding their son. They asked all sides of the Syrian insurrection to “keep Austin in their minds” as peace talks approach. They also ask that the Syrian government “search vigorously for Austin in order to secure his safe return.”
The 31-year-old ex-Marine was one of a few journalists reporting from Damascus when he vanished last August.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013
Full Length Interview: Fox Report with Shepard Smith
May 31, 2013
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013
Interview: Fox Report with Shepard Smith
May 29, 2013
Interview with PressTV
Parents of missing American journalist in Syria hopeful
Parents of the missing American journalist, Austin Tice, have expressed hope the conflict in Syria would end soon.
The American freelance journalist, who has been writing regularly for the Washington Post and other US media, has gone missing in Syria since mid-August 2012.
Austin’s parents are hopeful that Geneva 2 talks would be successful and that a solution would end the suffering and impact of the conflict in Syria.
“Well one thing that is clear or is at least clear to us is that the situation in Syria is extremely fluid, changing from day to day and one of our hopes and I guess maybe it’s just a parent’s hope is that with changes and with movements the opportunity for Austin to be found is greater,” Austin’s parents told Press TV.
“It would be our desire that hostilities and violence stop and we hope the international community can find a way for that to happen,” they added.
“But at the same time we are very hopeful that someone that sees this interview or hears us speaking and knows something about our son, where Austin is, would contact us.”
On Monday, Yara Abbas, working with Syria’s private al-Ikhbariya TV, was killed by sniper fire near al-Daba’a military airport, just outside Qusayr, as she was covering an army assault on the airport.
The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on May 23, “Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis.”
IA/PR
December 21, 2012
By Marcus Brauchli and Anders Gyllenhaal, Published: December 21Marcus Brauchli is executive editor of The Washington Post, and Anders Gyllenhaal is vice president for news at McClatchy. They can be reached at brauchlim@washpost.com and agyllenhaal@mcclatchy.com.
Austin Tice was well on his way to a law degree when the pull of journalism got to be too much for him. Fascinated with the Middle East and frustrated with news coverage he saw as often too shallow, he decided to see if he could do better.
“It always drove Austin crazy when they’d say on the news, this couldn’t be confirmed because it’s too difficult to report,’’ Marc Tice, Austin’s father, told us. “He thought, ‘I’ve got the ability to do this. I can get in there and get these stories.’ ’’
Four months ago, Tice was captured in Syria, where he had been delivering on that commitment with fresh and compelling freelance reports that were regularly published in The Post and McClatchy newspapers. While the wait for news on his whereabouts drags on, we want to make the case for why this work is so vital and why he should be released.
We also want to draw attention to the delicate role of foreign reporters in places such as Syria. Understanding the savage tableau of war helps citizens, societies and governments make judgments and set policies that affect millions of people. At its best, journalism may save lives by making the costs and consequences of war more vivid.
Inevitably, journalists take risks when they cover wars. We have both lost friends and colleagues in battle; one of us has a brother, a photographer, who was wounded seriously 20 years ago in Sarajevo. But the risks should not include kidnapping, torture or murder.
And yet, so far this year, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 67 journalists have been killed in direct relation to their work.
In Syria, the number killed in combat or murdered this year is 28, a rate that the committee says approaches the worst annual tally of the Iraq war. Foreign and Syrian reporters alike have been killed. Even the head of Libya’s state-run news agency, SANA, was assassinated. This week, five days after they were kidnapped, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, and his crew escaped following a gunfight between their captors and rebels.
Many of the journalists at risk in conflict zones today aren’t on staff at big, traditional news organizations. The uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East have attracted freelance journalists who don’t need mainstream news outlets to reach an audience. New technologies enable them to upload video directly to YouTube or report battles in real time to followers on Twitter or Facebook.
Like many freelancers, Tice followed an unusual path to foreign reporting, an assignment that can take decades to earn on a big newspaper’s staff. A captain in the Marines who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tice left the service and enrolled in Georgetown University’s law school. It was just after his second year when he decided to give in to the tug of journalism that dated to high school.
Equipped with cameras, an exquisite writing talent and an instinct for finding his way to the center of things, Tice slipped over the Turkish border into Syria in May. At one point, he managed to get by checkpoints in Damascus by dressing as a woman despite his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame.
His work has been courageous and professional, contributing to the montage of truth that has shaped the world’s understanding of the Syrian conflict. Although he traveled mostly with the rebels, Tice was as interested in one side as the other, in capturing opposing viewpoints and casualties.
He focused on how the rebels were gaining momentum over the summer. He also helped to break the news in August that rebels were carrying out executions and torture. He was often on the front lines of the conflict. He celebrated his 31st birthday, he noted in his last Twitter post before his capture in mid-August, to the sounds of bombs landing nearby.
Information on his captivity, and even on who is holding him, has been hard to confirm despite the constant efforts of his family, our news organizations and other contacts in the United States and other governments.
Tice entered Syria without a visa, as have the majority of those covering this story. As he enters his fifth month of captivity, he has long since paid the price if this is seen as a violation of the country’s borders.
We believe his own story makes the best argument for his release.
He surely has met the high standards of quality and fairness he first thought about back in Afghanistan. Austin Tice has served both Syria and the wider world with reporting that cannot exist without such dedicated journalists. Those responsible for his capture and detention have a moral obligation to return him to his family, his friends and his work.
Read more from Tice and Syria:
Austin Tice and Liz Sly: Syrian rebels still hopeful as government regains initiative in Damascus
Austin Tice: In Syria, an oasis from war
December 13, 2012
Interview with Christiane Amanpour
By Claire Calzonetti, Samuel Burke & Mick Krever CNN
“I don’t have a death wish; I have a life wish,” Austin Tice wrote after his third month in Syria, working as a freelance journalist. “Coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the greatest feeling of my life.”
That was in July. A month later he was kidnapped, and is still missing today.
His parents, Marc and Debra Tice, say they are “absolutely” certain Austin is still alive. They sat down for a rare interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday to explain their son’s story, and plead for his safe return.
Thirty-one-year-old Austin Tice disappeared in mid-August while reporting outside Damascus. His writing had been featured in the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers.
In what would be the final Tweet before his capture in August, the Texas native appeared to be in good spirits. On August 11 he wrote, “Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by [Taylor Swift]. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.”
The Tices talked almost daily with their son, then suddenly they heard nothing from him for weeks.
After an agonizing wait, a video of the journalist surfaced on YouTube in September. The 47-second video showed Tice, obviously in distress, being led up a hill by armed and masked men chanting “Allahu Akbar” – God is the greatest.
Debra Tice said she went into physical shock when she saw the video, but also realized what it meant: Austin was still alive.
Tice’s father told Amanpour that “No parents, no family should see their son, their child, their sibling, in those circumstances,” but he hopes the video might ultimately lead to contact with whomever is holding their son.
Analysts say the video looks staged and that there are reasons to believe the men in the video are not the Islamic extremists they purport to be.
The U.S. State Department believes Tice is actually being held by the Syrian regime, a charge Damascus denies.
Tice’s parents say they do not want to speculate about who is holding him – they just want their son back home.
Debra Tice described Austin, the eldest of her seven children, as a passionate man. She tried to explain, for a mother, the seemingly inexplicable: Why her son would go to one of the most violent countries on earth.
“He likes to know what’s going on in the world,” she said, and he was frustrated by the lack first-hand reporting from Syria’s civil war. He told her, “‘I’m someone that can go. I can face that danger because this story is important.’”
On the chance that Austin sees the interview his parents spoke directly to him: “Austin, we love you … we’re doing everything we can to get you safely home.”
The Tice family has established a website to help find their son: http://www.austinticefamily.com/
December 12, 2012
Interview with Alhurra (Arabic)
November 18, 2012
Interview with RT TV (Arabic)
http://arabic.rt.com/news_all_news/news/600075/
Our thanks to RT TV’s Arabic language service for conducting and broadcasting this interview, which was done during our trip to Beirut seeking support for Austin’s release.
November 12, 2012
Transcript of Press Conference at Beirut Press ClubMarc: Thank you for coming here today. My name is Marc Tice, and this is my wife Debra. We are the parents of Austin Tice, a journalist who was last working in Syria and with whom we’ve had no contact since August 13. We’re here today to appeal for information about Austin. If anyone who hears this has any information about Austin and especially what we can do to bring him home, please tell us. We have a website where you can send us an email: austinticefamily.com.
We know we are not the only family who has suffered. Austin’s silence has given us some understanding of the anxieties and uncertainties that so many families in this part of the world are experiencing. We love our son. He is a fine man, a good journalist and we want everything to be well with him. We ask whoever is holding Austin to treat him well, to keep him safe, and to return him to us as soon as possible. Again, anyone who hears this and can help us find Austin, talk with him and get him back safely, please send us an email information@austintice.com.
Now Debi would like to say a few words:
Debi: Thank you all for coming, we really appreciate it and we count on your support. Austin is the oldest of our seven children. We are a big close family. We have all felt a terrible void in this prolonged silence. With the approaching holiday season we are even more dismayed by the empty chair at our family table. We miss Austin’s knowing smile, his big laugh and his great story telling. The energetic joy in our home has been greatly diminished by his absence. Austin loves being the big brother, he hugs and lifts his sister off the floor, and he constantly challenges his brothers to excellence. When they play games, a great and rare joy is expressed in besting Austin.
Austin is a cherished son and beloved brother. If he were your son and your brother I ask, what would you do to find him and return him to your family? Who would you most want to speak to? We are asking that anyone who can put us in touch with information about Austin – please go to our website, austinticefamily.com, and contact us. We love Austin dearly and will do anything to have him safely return to our family.
And now I’d like to speak directly to my son, in case he can hear this. My precious Austin, I love you dearly. I hold you tenderly in my heart and I pray for you constantly. Your brothers and sisters love you and think of you every minute. Be assured we will do all we can to bring you safely home.
Questions (transcribed as closely as possible)
Q: When did you last hear of him, how long was he in Syria? Were you in touch with him and where did he go in from?
Marc: The last contact we had from him was on August 13. What we want more than anything else is contact with him now and that’s really what we’re asking for and of course to bring him home. We emailed, we chatted, used social media to speak to him very frequently while he was in Syria so when we stopped hearing from him we became very concerned.
Q: Where did he enter Syria?
Debra: From Turkey
Q: So why are you here?
Debra: We are appealing to everyone and anyone for information about Austin and how we can bring him home.
Q: Who have you reached out to in Syrian government and what has been their response.
Marc: We have been in touch directly and indirectly with people in the Syrian government. They have indicated to us they don’t know where Austin is and we are reaching out to everyone that we can get in touch with to try to get their help in determining where Austin is and what we need to do bring him home.
Debra: Someone knows where our son is and we are beseeching that person to reach out to us and allow us to speak with him.
Q: Did you contact Turkish and Lebanese authorities?
Marc: We have a number of friends who are helping us and we have reached out to many of those authorities and will continue to do so and that is one reason why we are here, to reach out to anyone who can give us information.
Q: The Syrian authorities deny they have him, have you had any contact with any armed gang who are asking for money or any indication the Syrians are looking for him?
Debra: We really have no idea who is holding our son and that is our main purpose, to try to make contact with our son, to try to make contact and bring him home. We have no idea who is holding him.
Marc: We are contacting as best we can every group, every organization to try to get an answer to those questions.
Q: Has anyone told you they are looking for him whether political religious leaders etc?
Debra: We are profoundly grateful and humbled and amazed by the outpouring of assistance and support that we have received. There are many people who are working and looking and of course all over the world there are people praying with me.
Marc: That is correct. He has been in Syria since he entered in May and right now we have no idea exactly where he is or who he is with, and again our focus is to try to reach out and hope someone can contact us with information about what we need to do. We would like to make it clear that we will do whatever we can do to safely bring him home.
Q: Does this include paying ransom?
Marc: We have no idea what will be required and we would like to know from whoever is holding him what it is we need to do.
Debra: We believe he was in Daraya when he disappeared, and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary, whatever appears to be most beneficial in order to return our son.
Q: Did the video give you any clues?
Marc: No. We are hoping for some contact that will let us know who has him and what we need to do.
Q: Is the US Embassy or US officials involved?
Debra: We’ve had appropriate and amazing support in our search for our son and our decision to come to this area was driven by the fact that we want to expand our efforts and put ourselves in the position of being available for contacts.
Q: Has the free Syrian army contacted you? Are you staying here? Will you go to Syria?
Marc: We have not been contacted by anyone. We are here this week and if it would be productive for us to come back again, or go anywhere else for that matter; we’re willing to do that.
Q: What can journalists do?
Marc: The response from other journalists here in the region and honestly around the world has been humbling. It’s an amazing group of people. We have such an appreciation for their support and care. We would ask any journalist, by the nature of their work they speak to many people…so we would ask that they ask for information about Austin and if they receive any information please contact us.
Q: Do you think after you get your son back you will detach yourself from Syria?
Debra: Sometimes I feel that maybe I have a Middle Eastern heart so I think that my admiration for the culture and my love for the people and my enjoyment of the food is going to be a lifelong attachment.
Marc: I would say it’s impossible for an experience like this not to stay with you. We want no one to experience the kind of pain and longing and uncertainty that we and others are experiencing.
Before you leave…
Let me ask whoever is holding Austin, please treat him well, keep him safe, and return him to us as soon as you can.
Thank you.
November 09, 2012
SKeyes Statements | Lebanon
Kidnapped Journalist Austin Tice’s Parents to Hold a Press Conference in Beirut
November 9, 2012
Source: Beirut – SKeyes
Marc and Debra Tice, American freelance journalist Austin Tice’s parents, who was kidnapped in Syria on August 12, 2012, will hold a press conference on Monday, November 12, 2012, at 11 am at the Press Club in Furn el Chebbak, to talk about their son’s disappearance and urge relevant parties to release him.
On August 12, Austin Tice went missing in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, after weeks of covering the fighting between the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian government forces. On September 26, a video showing Tice blindfolded and surrounded by a group of armed men wearing the traditional Afghan clothes was released on YouTube. The kidnappers’ identity as well as Tice’s location could not be determined and his fate remains unknown. On October 8, Tice’s parents called on the Syrian government to help release their son.
Tice works as a freelance correspondent for The Washington Post and other news agencies such as McClatchy, CBC News, Al-Jazeera English and Agence France-Press among others.
The SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom invites all audiovisual, print and electronic media, whether Lebanese, Arab or international, to cover the press conference on Monday, in order to contribute to Tice’s release and that of all Syrian and foreign journalists detained by the Syrian regime or the armed opposition.
For more information, please contact Ayman Mhanna, SKeyes Center Executive Director, by e-mail (amhanna@skeyesmedia.org) or by phone (+9611397331). You can also contact Philip Elwood, the media advisor for the Tice family, by e-mail (pelwood@levick.com) or by phone (+12025072229).
October 05, 2012
http://arabic.rt.com/news_all_news/news/596233/
Thank you to RT TV’s Arabic language service for broadcasting our statement appealing for information on Austin’s condition and situation
Austin Tice’s mother asks her son’s captors to let her know what they expect
Debra Tice is the mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
There are many important and scary details that Debra Tice does not know about her son Austin. She has no idea exactly where he is, or who his captors have been since he vanished while reporting in Syria more than four years ago.
But of this, she is certain: Austin Tice is alive, apparently in decent health, and he is being held against his will somewhere in Syria.
“I’m trying to reach whoever is holding him and compel them to realize, it’s time to release him and let him come home,” Tice said Tuesday in an interview in Washington, where she is set to attend the unveiling Wednesday of a banner in her son’s honor at the Newseum.
The banner displays a photo of a smiling Austin Tice, his sunglasses pushed up jauntily on top of his head, and the succinct description of his situation: “Held captive for being a journalist since August 2012.”
It is to remain on the Newseum’s facade until he is returned safely to his family in Houston. Unless he is released before Inauguration Day, the new president will go directly past the banner on the way to and from the Capitol.
Austin Tice, who has contributed to The Washington Post, is one of at least 430 journalists and citizen journalists being held around the world, according to Reporters Without Borders. (Family photo)“We’re very conscious of our place on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Newseum President Jeffrey Herbst said. “Our role is to bring his cause to the public. I think we’re fulfilling our mission, making sure people know that someone who wanted to inform the world of what’s happening in Syria is still missing.”
According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 430 journalists and citizen journalists are being detained around the world, either by governments or as hostages. Tice is the only American reporter among them.
A handful of countries account for many of the imprisoned reporters on the list. Turkey alone is responsible for jailing at least 130 reporters since a crackdown on the media in the wake of a failed coup in July. The other countries high on the list are China, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam and Syria.
Tice, a former Marine who is now 35, was a freelance reporter whose stories from Syria appeared in The Washington Post, McClatchy and other news outlets. His family has never received any ransom demands. The only time his captors have reached out to prove they had him was six weeks after he disappeared, when they posted a brief YouTube video showing him being led blindfolded up a rocky hillside surrounded by gunmen. He was reciting a Koranic verse in Arabic when he interjected in English, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
[Austin Tice, two years later: A plea from his parents]
Early in his captivity, there were reports that he had been taken by the Syrian regime. State Department officials have also said that they believe he is in the custody of the government. But lately they have had nothing new to report, and the Syrian government has denied holding Tice or knowing where he is.
Debra Tice said she cannot reveal all that she has learned about her son’s situation without endangering him, but said she believes that he is not being held by antigovernment rebels or Islamic State militants. That leaves the government, or forces loyal to it.
She admits to being frustrated that her son’s plight has not received more attention from the American public, and she said she hopes the Newseum banner changes that.
“In France, when someone is missing, the family expects to hear from the president immediately, and a banner is put up,” she said. “I’ve wondered, where are the banners for Austin?”
She said the Obama administration has been helpful and collaborative since adopting a new hostage policy in 2015 and naming a special hostage envoy. Debra and Marc Tice met with President Obama in July, and he assured the parents that he is committed to their son’s safe return. She holds out hope that it will happen before Obama leaves office in January.
“Austin’s captors have to reach out and let us know what they expect,” she said. “They need to be aware, this is an opportunity. It could be quite a long period of time before they are able to approach a new administration.”
One thing that the past four years have taught her, she said, is that many Americans are apathetic to the danger journalists sometimes face.
“I consider the banner at the Newseum to be a call to Americans to protect and respect journalists,” she said. “Austin’s captivity and the lack of passion about getting him home represents a complacency about journalists. Where do we hear the relentless voice calling for the release of this journalist? Where do we see the counter on TV that’s a piece of our daily bread? This journalist has spent 1,451 days in captivity. It’s appalling.”
Read more:
Austin Tice: ‘It’s nice and all, but please quit telling me to be safe’
Obama administration to stop threatening prosecution of hostage families for paying ransom
Debra Tice is the mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
There are many important and scary details that Debra Tice does not know about her son Austin. She has no idea exactly where he is, or who his captors have been since he vanished while reporting in Syria more than four years ago.
But of this, she is certain: Austin Tice is alive, apparently in decent health, and he is being held against his will somewhere in Syria.
“I’m trying to reach whoever is holding him and compel them to realize, it’s time to release him and let him come home,” Tice said Tuesday in an interview in Washington, where she is set to attend the unveiling Wednesday of a banner in her son’s honor at the Newseum.
The banner displays a photo of a smiling Austin Tice, his sunglasses pushed up jauntily on top of his head, and the succinct description of his situation: “Held captive for being a journalist since August 2012.”
It is to remain on the Newseum’s facade until he is returned safely to his family in Houston. Unless he is released before Inauguration Day, the new president will go directly past the banner on the way to and from the Capitol.
Austin Tice, who has contributed to The Washington Post, is one of at least 430 journalists and citizen journalists being held around the world, according to Reporters Without Borders. (Family photo)“We’re very conscious of our place on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Newseum President Jeffrey Herbst said. “Our role is to bring his cause to the public. I think we’re fulfilling our mission, making sure people know that someone who wanted to inform the world of what’s happening in Syria is still missing.”
According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 430 journalists and citizen journalists are being detained around the world, either by governments or as hostages. Tice is the only American reporter among them.
A handful of countries account for many of the imprisoned reporters on the list. Turkey alone is responsible for jailing at least 130 reporters since a crackdown on the media in the wake of a failed coup in July. The other countries high on the list are China, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam and Syria.
Tice, a former Marine who is now 35, was a freelance reporter whose stories from Syria appeared in The Washington Post, McClatchy and other news outlets. His family has never received any ransom demands. The only time his captors have reached out to prove they had him was six weeks after he disappeared, when they posted a brief YouTube video showing him being led blindfolded up a rocky hillside surrounded by gunmen. He was reciting a Koranic verse in Arabic when he interjected in English, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
[Austin Tice, two years later: A plea from his parents]
Early in his captivity, there were reports that he had been taken by the Syrian regime. State Department officials have also said that they believe he is in the custody of the government. But lately they have had nothing new to report, and the Syrian government has denied holding Tice or knowing where he is.
Debra Tice said she cannot reveal all that she has learned about her son’s situation without endangering him, but said she believes that he is not being held by antigovernment rebels or Islamic State militants. That leaves the government, or forces loyal to it.
She admits to being frustrated that her son’s plight has not received more attention from the American public, and she said she hopes the Newseum banner changes that.
“In France, when someone is missing, the family expects to hear from the president immediately, and a banner is put up,” she said. “I’ve wondered, where are the banners for Austin?”
She said the Obama administration has been helpful and collaborative since adopting a new hostage policy in 2015 and naming a special hostage envoy. Debra and Marc Tice met with President Obama in July, and he assured the parents that he is committed to their son’s safe return. She holds out hope that it will happen before Obama leaves office in January.
“Austin’s captors have to reach out and let us know what they expect,” she said. “They need to be aware, this is an opportunity. It could be quite a long period of time before they are able to approach a new administration.”
One thing that the past four years have taught her, she said, is that many Americans are apathetic to the danger journalists sometimes face.
“I consider the banner at the Newseum to be a call to Americans to protect and respect journalists,” she said. “Austin’s captivity and the lack of passion about getting him home represents a complacency about journalists. Where do we hear the relentless voice calling for the release of this journalist? Where do we see the counter on TV that’s a piece of our daily bread? This journalist has spent 1,451 days in captivity. It’s appalling.”
Read more:
Austin Tice: ‘It’s nice and all, but please quit telling me to be safe’
Obama administration to stop threatening prosecution of hostage families for paying ransom
4 hostage families make a plea: Bring home Austin Tice
An essay by Diane and John Foley, parents of James Foley; Ed and Paula Kassig, parents of Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig; Carl, Marsha and Eric Mueller, parents and brother of Kayla Mueller; Shirley and Arthur Sotloff, parents of Steven Sotloff.
One year ago this week, following the torture and killing of two of our American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and two of our American humanitarian aid workers, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller, President Barack Obama made a commitment to improve our government’s dismal record on the return of American hostages.
The president ordered a new government hostage policy, accompanied by a presidential policy directive, representing a much-needed effort to clarify and coordinate the government’s response to hostage-taking. The directive outlines the processes by which “the United States Government will work in a coordinated effort to leverage all instruments of national power to recover U.S. nationals held hostage abroad, unharmed.”
Austin, a freelance journalist, Marine veteran and Georgetown law student, has been held hostage in Syria since August 2012. His safe return will satisfy a significant and necessary measure of the success of the new policy. Austin is the only American reporter being held hostage anywhere in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders. At the recent White House correspondents’ dinner, President Obama committed “to fight for the release of American journalists held against their will.” We were stunned and disheartened when the president chose not to refer by name to Austin, the only American news journalist being held against his will.
We, the family of Kayla Mueller, are haunted every day by the fact that we didn’t secure Kayla’s release, by the extraordinary hope she held during her terrifying captivity, by the horrific torture we now know she endured, by the missed opportunities and by the deadly silence that cost all the hostages their lives. Our hearts are broken and our hope is that our government will do all it is able to bring Austin and all hostages home safely. No additional U.S. citizens should have to endure the silence of our country, with that silence filled only by the terrorists holding them.
We, the family of the late journalist Steven Sotloff, remind President Obama of the following: You told us in person that if it were your daughters, you would do anything in your power to bring them home. We implore you: Bring Austin Tice home.
We, the parents of James Foley, say: Mr. President, after the horrific executions of our son James Foley and the other courageous Americans, you agreed with us that America could do better! We are counting on you to keep your promise by bringing Austin Tice home before you leave office!
We, the parents of Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, are devastated by the loss of our son, but the pain will be slightly lessened if his death helps bring Austin and others home. Jim, Steven, Peter and Kayla sacrificed all in their efforts to better the lives of others. As President Obama himself noted, they stood for the greatest of American ideals. One of the lessons we have learned is that the pain of the family and friends of the hostage increases tremendously as time passes without resolution. It requires mountain-moving faith to maintain hope as the crisis continues. With unwavering hope, Austin’s parents do not give up. The United States government must not give up.
The Syrian conflict is horrific and tragic, its resolution complex and uncertain. Every diplomatic effort to address the conflict is fraught with uncertainty. Nevertheless, this uncertainty is not a reason to hesitate in leveraging all appropriate means to secure Austin’s safe release and return.
We are not asking the White House to put anyone in harm’s way, nor compromise national security. We are asking the president, fully within the responsibilities and obligations of his office, to put aside any personal or election year concern, to engage boldly and to use all appropriate means to bring Austin Tice safely home as soon as possible.
EDITORS’ NOTE
Austin Tice, now 34, was working as a freelance journalist for McClatchy and The Washington Post when he was taken captive in Syria in August 2012.
Four American hostage families have joined with Austin’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice of Houston, on the anniversary of President Barack Obama’s hostage policy directive to make an appeal to the president. Obama’s directive clarified that the government “may itself communicate with hostage-takers, their intermediaries, interested governments and local communities to attempt to secure the safe recovery of the hostage.”
Georgetown Students Rally at White House for Austin Tice
NE Loop 610 @ McCarty Rd, Houston
October, 2015
The Road to Damascus
In 2012 Houston native Austin Tice heeded a calling to become a journalist in war-ravaged Syria. His photographs, stories, and tweets shed new light on the conflict—until one day they stopped.
Before he ever considered traveling to Syria, before he saw his byline in the Washington Post, and before he made worldwide news, Austin Tice had a revelation in the desert. At 29, he had insatiable curiosity and a surfeit of charisma, and though he generally wasn’t one to entertain visions, he’d been thinking a lot about his future. It was 2011, and he was three months into his deployment at Camp Leatherneck, in southern Afghanistan, with his fellow Marines. Despite being in a war zone, he was restless. The Arab Spring, the wave of democratic uprisings sweeping through Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, had been making headlines; the Islamic world was changing fast, and he felt desperately removed from the action. “So often I feel like I was born in the wrong age, or at least on the wrong continent,” he wrote on Facebook that July. But then, as he spent his downtime between missions gazing at photos of protesters in the streets of the Libyan capital and reading tweets about rebels clashing with forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, an idea came to him.
Excitedly, he hurried to his commander’s office and burst in. He knew what he was going to do, he announced: become a war photographer. The commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Bruggeman, looked at him cockeyed. Bruggeman had talked often with Austin during their deployment, and though Bruggeman had come to enjoy his big ideas, this was unusual even for him. “Why would you want to do that?” Bruggeman said. Austin’s eyes widened. “Why wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t want to do that?”
Had Bruggeman known Austin before their deployment, he might have seen the moment coming. Growing up in Westbury, in southwest Houston, as the oldest of seven, Austin had always had a passionate streak. His mother, Debra, homeschooled her children in a house where NPR, newspapers, and the Bible stood in for television—which the family sold at a garage sale in 1988—and weekends were filled with canoeing and camping. One morning, when he was a first grader, Austin came downstairs to find that his assignments for the day weren’t ready. He turned to his mother and said, “ ‘You don’t care about my future. You don’t care about my education. I have no promise here,’ ” Debra recalled. “Everything was always so intense and urgent and relevant with him. He was like that from birth.”
His intensity led to academic success. A National Merit finalist and an Eagle Scout, Austin enrolled in the University of Houston’s Honors College just before his sixteenth birthday. Even then he’d felt the pull of the larger world. During his admissions interview, when asked what he wanted to do with his life, he replied, “Well, I really want to be a foreign correspondent for NPR.” (Jodie Koszegi, the admissions counselor, was impressed. “He knew his own mind,” she told me.) Soon he’d landed a gig writing for the campus paper, the Daily Cougar, and two years later, in the fall of 1999, he transferred to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. By the time he graduated, in 2002, he had grown into his lanky frame and earned a reputation for his direct, if not always gracious, manner. One college friend explained, “He’s the kind of person who really has a vision of his place in the world and who considers the question, ‘What can I do that will be really important?’ ”
Austin as an Eagle Scout.PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE TICE FAMILY
Like so many young idealists, Austin ended up in law school, but, as would frequently be the case in his life, he’d soon grown restless. After one semester of legal studies at Georgetown, he signed up for the Marine Corps, and in 2005 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. “I felt there was this sort of disconnect between the world I was living in, where I went to class every day and parties, and then what I would read in the paper,” he would later say in an interview, archived at the Library of Congress. After two deployments, he restarted his first year of law school in 2008, but he found that the discipline and sense of mission he’d acquired in the military made him impatient with his younger, flip-flop-wearing classmates. In early 2011 he volunteered for another deployment as a reservist.
This was how he’d ended up in Afghanistan. No sooner had he arrived, however, than he began wrestling with the U.S. military’s role and tactics in the Middle East. “Heading out soon on a horribly conceived mission,” he wrote once on Twitter. “Hopefully will be forgotten like most dumb missions are; otherwise, see you on CNN.” His commander took his frustrations in stride. “He would drive conversations with questions that were not typical of conversations I was having with anyone, regardless of rank,” Bruggeman said. “He was very curious as to the purpose of our involvement. Austin has a refined sense of justice.” When, two weeks after announcing his new calling, Austin lugged a heavy, expensive Nikon camera that he’d just purchased into Bruggeman’s office, the commander was impressed. “It is not uncommon for someone to have a mid-deployment epiphany,” he said. “A lot of times people think, ‘Hey, I’m going to get out and go to school.’ This was a bit more of a radical epiphany. Not many people follow through on their radical mid-deployment epiphanies, but he did.”
The same day he bought his camera—August 11, his thirtieth birthday—Austin also purchased a plane ticket to Cairo for the following March. His deployment would end in December, and though he planned to return to law school for the spring semester, his main focus was to prepare for life as a foreign journalist. As a trial run, he intended to spend his spring break documenting the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution. Scanning daily headlines on his computer, he weighed where he might commit himself after that.
He briefly considered Libya, but Gaddafi fell in October, and as the news cycle moved on, Austin’s attention shifted to Syria. The conflict there, which had begun in March 2011 as a peaceful protest movement against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, had turned increasingly violent as the government cracked down on protesters. Now the Free Syrian Army—a ragtag association of mostly Sunni defectors from the military—was fighting to depose the better-equipped Assad regime, which is composed largely of Alawites, a Shiite minority. As the violence worsened, the government banned foreign news organizations and often refused to issue visas to journalists, forcing them to either embed with the regime or illegally cross the Turkish or Lebanese borders.
Those who did sneak into the country exposed themselves to tremendous risk. Syria was quickly becoming the most dangerous place in the world—a “black hole,” as some would later call it—for journalists. (Since the start of the Syrian uprising, some 95 journalists have been killed there, and at least 12 are currently imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.) In February 2012 Marie Colvin, a veteran reporter for London’s Sunday Times, was killed by rocket fire in the city of Homs after slipping across the border. Following Colvin’s death, news agencies began pulling back their personnel.
With few journalists on the ground, it was growing increasingly difficult to know what exactly was happening in Syria. Reading the news, Austin was irritated whenever he saw that journalists “could not confirm” details because a news organization didn’t have a reporter in country. The shroud of silence over the conflict—which Colvin herself had described as the worst she’d ever seen—only helped crystallize Austin’s sense of mission.
After returning to Washington, D.C., in January 2012, Austin used his savings to buy camera lenses and other gear and began studying maps of Syria and teaching himself rudimentary Arabic; on Fridays, he audited an introductory photography class at Georgetown. “Time to work hard, be dull, and prepare for the next great adventure. In a movie, this part would be a montage,” he tweeted. At a panel discussion on Syria at George Mason University in February, Austin met Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, then the head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit supporting the Syrian revolution. “He made it very clear that he was going whether I helped him or not, which was the attitude of many freelancers at the time,” Ghosh-Siminoff said. “I felt like I had some responsibility to help him meet the right people so it wouldn’t be a complete disaster.” Ghosh-Siminoff was concerned that Austin didn’t speak Arabic and feared for his safety but ultimately agreed to connect Austin with some activists he knew in the region. “From the beginning, he said he wanted to get to Damascus. No journalist had done what he was planning to do, this trek from top to bottom.”
In March, Austin traveled to Egypt with his sister Meagan and two friends, marveling at the pyramids, enjoying the beaches of Sharm el-Sheikh, and photographing a protest in Tahrir Square. This taste of photojournalism confirmed what he’d known all along: he was meant to spend the upcoming summer in Syria. Late one night in Cairo, he called his parents to inform them of his plan. “I’m not going to have any discussion about this,” he told his mother. Debra knew that her son wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. “There was no talking him out of it. So we just let the butterflies fly and asked, ‘How do we support you?’ ”
On May 8 Austin packed for southern Turkey. He would fly to the city of Gaziantep, take a bus to the city of Antakya, and from there figure out how to enter nearby Syria. He squeezed some $10,000 worth of gear—including his camera, lenses, a portable satellite Internet terminal, a small solar panel, and a Kindle—into several green camera bags and a backpack. To keep himself entertained over multiple flights and layovers, he also brought along Dispatches, Michael Herr’s book about his time as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Before boarding his first flight, Austin pulled out his phone. “This is either gonna be wildly successful or a complete disaster,” he tweeted. “Here goes nothing.”
Austin reporting in Al Tal.PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CBS
The Syria that Austin entered is not the Syria of today. The reports emanating out of the country have been bleak: seared into our minds are the images of carnage from the Assad regime’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons (more than 220,000 Syrians have died in the conflict so far), of 3.9 million refugees fleeing the country, and of the horrors perpetrated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State, including the gruesome beheadings of foreign journalists like James Foley and aid workers like Peter Kassig. But when Austin first landed on its border, a year and two months after the revolt started, Syria had not yet descended into such chaos. It was already one of the most dangerous countries in the world, but the general assumption was that its government, like Egypt’s and Libya’s and Tunisia’s before it, would soon topple in the face of a united popular uprising. Opposition groups had not yet splintered, U.S. involvement still appeared to be a possibility, and the extremist groups who would later give rise to ISIS were insignificant.
But the violence was escalating. In the months before Austin arrived, Assad had increasingly been clamping down with force on those who opposed him. A UN cease-fire in April 2012 was widely disregarded. As Western powers stood by, unwilling to take a side, the pace of the conflict began to quicken. For the Turkish city of Antakya, this suddenly meant a new identity. With a population of 250,000, Antakya is the capital of Hatay Province, a sliver of land sandwiched between Syria, which controlled the area until the late thirties, and the Mediterranean Sea. It had once been the third-largest city in the Roman Empire and, as the biblical city of Antioch, was an early center of Christianity but had since faded to a provincial backwater. Now Antakya’s geography was turning it into a Casablanca of the Syrian war, a safe haven for refugees, injured fighters, spies, arms dealers, and diplomats, who rented apartments and hotel rooms in the city and mingled at the many outdoor cafes and kebab stands.
Antakya lies in a valley surrounded by mountains and bisected by the Orontes River, tamed into a concrete channel. On a cloudy afternoon, Austin rode the bus in from Gaziantep, passing green rolling hills covered with olive groves and finding the scenery “reminiscent of Southern California.” In the city, he met with a contact provided by Ghosh-Siminoff: Mohammed Issa, a jovial, slightly chubby lawyer and activist from the Damascus suburbs who had fled Syria in July 2011 after being arrested and imprisoned for 57 days. They had tea at a cheap restaurant in Antakya’s old city, and when Austin mentioned he was on a tight budget, Issa invited the American to stay with him and his friends in a second-floor apartment in a mustard-yellow building on Dumlupinar Street. A Syrian refugee named Jameel Saib had found the apartment in early 2012, and it had become something of a way station for displaced Syrian activists, revolutionaries, and foreign fighters of various persuasions on their way to take up arms across the border.
The men slept on soft pallets covered in mismatched floral fabric, which they stacked on top of the cabinets when not in use. Austin began attending the rebels’ organizational meetings, making out what he could in his self-described “crummy Arabic”; having political conversations with Syrian refugees over coffee; and introducing his new Muslim friends to the musical stylings of Taylor Swift. He bonded with Issa over their legal backgrounds. “He was so social. We got to be such good friends that we forgot he was a journalist,” said Issa, who now works as a producer for Al Jazeera in Gaziantep.
In the two weeks he spent at the apartment, in fact, Austin made quick inroads. “I could make ten documentaries about the people who have come and gone from this house,” Saib said while sipping hot tea one day this March, sitting cross-legged on a daybed in the apartment’s light-filled front room. He estimates that hundreds of people have passed through his home, from Western journalists to jihadist fighters. But Austin stood out from the others because he seemed sincerely interested in getting to know everyone. “One time we stayed up all night just talking,” Saib said. The apartment had been so crowded with guests that there was no room to sleep. “So we went to the park and stayed there until seven a.m.” The two sat under the palm trees and cedars and discussed whether happiness was found in material or spiritual things.
In addition to being a safe place for refugees and fighters, Antakya had become a staging point for journalists planning to cross into Syria—in particular freelancers who had cut their teeth in Tahrir Square and Tripoli and were eager for a Syria dateline. Like Austin, many of these freelancers were young, inexperienced, and willing to take enormous personal risks, operating without insurance, translators, or expense accounts. Theo Padnos, James Foley, and Steven Sotloff, who would all later be kidnapped in Syria, spent time in Antakya. But none, perhaps, were looking to go as far into Syria, or stay inside as long, as Austin.
Soon he got the break he’d been wanting: another journalist connected him with Mahmoud Sheikh el-Zour, a sprightly 52-year-old Syrian who agreed to take him into Syria and help set up interviews and translate, a role that foreign correspondents commonly refer to as a fixer. El-Zour had been imprisoned for almost two years in the eighties during the regime of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, and later received asylum in the U.S., but he had left his life in Atlanta and his job selling heavy equipment and returned to the region to join the Free Syrian Army. When el-Zour agreed to become his fixer, Austin could barely contain his excitement. “I am embedded with #FSA,” he tweeted. “Newsworthy stuff going on daily. If someone wanted to hire me that would be great. Student loans don’t pay themselves.”
A few days later, on May 23, Austin found himself crouching in red dirt among the dry, nodding plumeless thistles as the afternoon sun dipped in the sky. Next to him, el-Zour was whispering into his walkie-talkie to rebels on the other side of the barbed-wire-and-cement fence that marked the Syrian border. When the time was right, they shimmied under the fence, and a group of rebels picked them up. They took back roads to skirt Syrian army checkpoints, until they reached their destination, Khan Shaykhun, a town some 75 miles away, in the northwest corner of the country. Austin had made it. Now he would slowly start working his way toward Damascus, about 160 miles south, recording what he saw.
For the first two weeks, he stayed in the home of Ziad Abo al-Majd, an activist in a nearby village, sleeping in an underground room in case of shelling. He would share a breakfast of cheese, olives, and bread with his host before heading out for the day, accompanying fighters to neighboring towns to document everything from Friday prayers to field hospital operations to funerals. Austin’s nights were usually reserved for uploading photos and writing about what he’d seen that day. “He was the first foreigner I ever met,” al-Majd, who is now the head of the management council of the revolution in Idlib Province, told me over Skype. “He was like one of us. . . . He was cool, kind, and so serious about his work.”
That June, July, and August would be the deadliest months the war had seen. For Austin, this made for perfect timing, but friends back in Antakya grew concerned. They had cautioned him not to speak about his time with the Marines while in Syria—lest he get crosswise with anyone about American foreign policy—but his general openness still worried them. “He was too brave, and I told him that many times,” Issa said. “He is clever, but he trusts his cleverness too much. Because of this, he met a lot of people and trusted them quickly and went with them many places in Syria. As a Syrian, I can’t trust any group.” Saib agreed. “He was adventurous and reckless,” he said. “And overconfident. It’s a problem in war zones to be too confident.”
If Austin felt any fear himself, it was suppressed by an immediate vindication of purpose. Within a week of crossing into Syria, he’d sold his first pictures, to McClatchy, which owns 29 papers in the U.S., including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Though his initial idea was to work only as a photojournalist, once he was on the ground, he found that he wanted to also write about what he was seeing. He reached out to Mark Seibel, McClatchy’s Washington, D.C.–based chief of correspondents, who was impressed by his writing. On June 1, McClatchy published his first story: 736 words about a meeting he’d observed between UN monitors and rebels in Latamneh, six miles south of Khan Shaykhun.
And with that, Austin, whose only real reporting experience had been covering campus issues for the Daily Cougar, was now a foreign correspondent.
When it comes to epiphanies, there is perhaps no greater touchstone than the story of the Apostle Paul, whose own awakening—in present-day Syria, and on the way to Damascus, no less—imbued him with singular purpose and a desire to change the world. Perhaps it is no accident, then, that Austin, after awakening to his calling as a war photographer, would follow the same path. “I really think that the next few years of my life are going to [be] a turning point, like I’m standing on the cusp of really coming into myself,” he’d written on Facebook in the months before reaching Syria. Reporting what he witnessed on his way to Damascus, he felt sure, would open the world’s eyes to the atrocities taking place before him.
He was not, however, as prepared for how the journey would open his own eyes to danger and suffering. In Kafr Zita, a town of 17,000 four miles south of Khan Shaykhun, Austin shadowed the rebels during a four-day battle with the regime. They were a disorganized and motley bunch, dressed in tracksuits and jeans and wielding machine guns, Molotov cocktails, and RPGs against the regime’s Russian tanks and helicopters. At one point during the battle, a helicopter fired on a pickup truck that Austin was riding in, and he got separated from el-Zour for four hours. A few days later, the Syrian army set fire to houses in town, leaving behind smoldering piles of rubble. When Austin returned to survey the destruction, he ducked into one of the scorched homes to take pictures and found himself standing in charred human remains. Later that day he photographed some chilling graffiti, spray-painted in Arabic on a stone wall near an abandoned Syrian army checkpoint: “Don’t worry, Bashar, you have a military that will drink blood.”
The experience left him rattled. “Been in Syria for 11 days and seen combat [twice]. It’s terrifying. I can’t comprehend the bravery of the [people] who have endured it for 14 months,” he wrote on Twitter. He was gutted by the suffering he saw along the way. “Saw a girl who’d been hit in the head by a tank round. 3 other kids died in the attack. She has brain damage and can’t walk. I broke down,” he tweeted. The plight of kids in the war zone weighed heavily on him. “I have more pictures of beautiful Syrian kids than I could ever possibly use. It breaks my heart to see what is happening to them. No kid should even have to know that things like this happen in the world, much less be forced to live and sometimes die this way,” he wrote in a caption on Flickr.
Austin’s searing coverage helped fill the void of news about the war, and as he started to make a name for himself, he began pitching stories to editors at some of the largest U.S. media outlets. The first of his three Washington Post stories—a profile of “the Idlib boys,” as Austin called them, the FSA battalion operating in the northern province by the same name—ran on June 20, less than a month after he entered Syria. But the piece he seemed proudest of was a story for McClatchy that pondered whether certain elements of Assad’s forces might be intentionally underperforming. His time as a Marine had given him a keen understanding of military tactics. “He could tell you by the angles at which these helicopters were trying to chase rebel convoys that they were purposefully trying to miss,” one journalist told me. “That was a great insight because it illustrates that there are elements in the Assad military—Sunni pilots—that are not trying to prosecute this war and are sympathizing with the opposition.” As he inched closer to Damascus, Austin—with an unkempt beard matching his brown hair and eyes—appeared on CNN and CBS and gave radio interviews to the BBC and NPR.
By this time, he was traveling with another journalist. In Kafr Zita, less than two weeks into his time in Syria, Austin had met David Enders, a Beirut-based correspondent for McClatchy who had entered the country a few days prior from southern Turkey. They decided to stick together, traveling over the next couple of weeks from the top of Hama Province, in northwest Syria, down to northern Homs Province, in the center of the country, collaborating on several stories and spending considerable downtime waiting in safe houses.
Enders, who has a decade of experience covering wars in the Middle East, found Austin to be “very driven and very principled and very brave” but tried to impress upon him some safety tips. “He wasn’t trained for some of the delicacies of the situation. He was filing [stories] from the places he was, he was tweeting from the places he was. I told him explicitly that it was absurd to think that the government wasn’t monitoring those things and explained to him that I never datelined anything or published anything until I had been gone from a place for two days,” he recalled. “These are things that you do in a situation where the government has shown a willingness to target journalists.” Filing via satellite phone is risky too, as the regime can track and triangulate the signal. (This is widely acknowledged to be how the government targeted Marie Colvin.)
Most journalists who were going into Syria at the time would cross the border from Lebanon or Turkey, spend a few days inside, and head back to safety. That included Enders. At the end of June, Enders told Austin he was returning to the Lebanese border and implored Austin to come with him. But Austin wanted to continue south, to the city of Homs, which had been embroiled in a grinding, bloody siege for thirteen months. “My understanding of getting into Homs at that time, if you managed it, meant a slog through a two-mile sewer pipe, and if you got caught, you had nowhere to run,” Enders said. “I had advised him strongly not to continue on to Homs and to return to the border with me, but he wasn’t interested. He was intent on going to Damascus.”
This choice to continue south also meant Austin had to part ways with el-Zour, who wanted to stay and fight with the Idlib battalion and eventually return to Turkey, and so he reluctantly passed Austin off to another band of rebels headed south. El-Zour called Saib back in Antakya to express his frustration. “Austin wants to go to Damascus, and I can’t go with him now. I feel afraid for him, but I do not have the ability to make him stay with me,” Saib recounted el-Zour saying. (El-Zour, reached inside Syria, declined to comment for this story.)
Despite his limited grasp of Arabic, Austin quickly and implicitly trusted the rebels he met. “At the time, other journalists did go battalion hopping,” Ghosh-Siminoff explained. “There was sort of a system of trust and faith, by referral from whatever FSA group you were with. It kind of made sense because you felt like everyone was fighting for the right reasons. You weren’t worried about rebels kidnapping or killing you, because the rebels needed the media attention, needed the media on their side.” (The landscape is different now. There are about 1,200 militias operating in Syria today, says Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, citing CIA figures. “Many militias were still trying to be nice to Americans in the early stages of the civil war because they hoped they would get arms and help and money from the Americans. Today, Americans are seen as more useful for hostage money,” he told me.)
Though Austin was reaching places seen by few other Western journalists, he was weary of the many delays and the waiting around that travel in Syria required. After a few days idling in safe houses on the outskirts of Homs, Austin gave up and pushed farther south. “I have wasted a lot of time outside Homs, ultimately can’t get in. Headed toward Damascus instead,” he wrote Ghosh-Siminoff on July 1. “Things are happening there, there’s clearly an army offensive going on.” Four days later, he arrived in Yabroud, a city in the Qalamun Mountains some 45 miles north of Damascus that was largely untouched by shelling. “If didn’t know otherwise you’d never think there was a revolution here. Muslims & Christians intermingled. Peaceful,” he wrote on Twitter. “I feel like I’m on vacation. NO SHELLS!!” He shaved his scraggly beard to acclimate to the more secular environment and declared Yabroud to be an “oasis of calm” in a front-page Post piece. Next he moved on to Al Tal, six miles from downtown Damascus, where he watched rebels and government troops battle for control of two secret police buildings, with the FSA ultimately prevailing. “It was quite a scene when they struck the government flag on the roof and raised the Free Syrian Army flag. There was quite a bit of celebration in the streets,” he told Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News.
In the middle of the civil war, he didn’t let go of home. While holed up in a basement in Al Tal during one long bombardment, he penned a letter to a neighborhood association in Houston to support a planned housing development for single mothers. (“Dear Ma’ams and Sirs, I write to express my disappointment in my hometown’s apparent opposition to the extension of charitable aid to the most vulnerable in our community,” the letter begins.) When talking with his parents, Austin tended to shield Debra from the day-to-day realities of the dangers he faced, though he was a bit more candid with his father, Marc. One day when Austin was in Al Tal, Debra decided to see if his satellite phone was working.
“Oh, hey, Mom!” he said when he picked up. Other voices chattered in the background.
“What are you doing?” Debra asked.
“The connection might not be too good because we’re sheltering in a stairwell,” he said, before adding, “Actually, I gotta go. We’re running now. Love you, Mom. Talk to you later.”
After that, Debra decided never to call his satellite phone again. “Okay, well, his phone works,” she thought to herself, “but that was too much information.”
While he didn’t reveal fear to his parents, he was more forthcoming with his friends. One evening, Austin confessed to Ghosh-Siminoff over Google Chat, “I’m having a good time, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t also terrifying.”
“They give you a flak jacket?” Ghosh-Siminoff asked. Austin replied, “I got offered one but turned it down. Meh.”
Austin’s exploits and his desire to document the war even at great personal risk inspired a blend of awe and worry among his friends back home. Their concerns prompted him to write a note on Facebook, later published on the Post website, that has since become something of a manifesto.
“People keep telling me to be safe (as if that’s an option), keep asking me why I’m doing this crazy thing, keep asking what’s wrong with me for coming here. So listen,” he wrote. “Our granddads stormed Normandy and Iwo Jima and defeated global fascism. Neil Armstrong flew to the Moon in a glorified trash can, doing math on a clipboard as he went. Before there were roads, the Pioneers put one foot in front of the other until they walked across the entire continent. Then a bunch of them went down to fight and die in Texas ’cause they thought it was the right thing to do. Sometime between when our granddads licked the Nazis and when we started putting warnings on our coffee cups about the temperature of our beverage, America lost that pioneering spirit. We became a fat, weak, complacent, coddled, unambitious and cowardly nation. . . . So that’s why I came here to Syria, and it’s why I like being here now, right now, right in the middle of a brutal and still uncertain civil war. Every person in this country fighting for their freedom wakes up every day and goes to sleep every night with the knowledge that death could visit them at any moment. They accept that reality as the price of freedom. . . . They’re alive in a way that almost no Americans today even know how to be. They live with greater passion and dream with greater ambition because they are not afraid of death. Neither were the Pioneers. Neither were our granddads. Neither was Neil Armstrong. And neither am I.”
Austin’s summer had been full of danger, but his ultimate goal—trying to sneak into Damascus—would be his most daring move yet. On July 30, after days of trying, Austin finally persuaded a group of FSA rebels to smuggle him into the capital.
A truck ferried him through the Damascus suburbs, then he switched to a car, which soon stopped ahead of a government checkpoint. Austin slid out of the backseat and onto the pavement. As the car drove off, a guide led him into a stream of pedestrians walking toward the checkpoint. Austin was draped in an abaya, a long black gown, and his face was covered by a niqab, a full-face veil. Through a slit he could see soldiers with Kalashnikovs milling about, periodically searching cars and eyeing ID cards. He felt conspicuous in the disguise, which left his feet exposed and stretched awkwardly across his muscular shoulders—sculpted by years of swimming in childhood and rowing crew in college—giving the impression of a hulking woman. Still, odd as it was, wearing the outfit seemed better than approaching a checkpoint as himself, a journalist in the country illegally. If discovered by Assad’s soldiers, he could be detained in one of the regime’s many prisons, or worse.
Austin followed his guide at a deliberate pace, trying not to rouse suspicion. He kept his eyes trained on the ground. All he could do was keep moving and pray he wouldn’t be noticed. It was in the upper 90’s and humid, and the black fabric—which retained the perfumed scent of the last person to wear it—was oppressive in the afternoon heat. They were nearly past the checkpoint when, from twenty feet behind them, one of the soldiers bellowed, “Stop!” They didn’t look back. His guide sped up, so Austin did too. Then they heard the crack of gunfire. At this, they both bolted down the street. Bullets pinged the wall beside them.
They ducked into an alleyway and kept running, past women and children gawking from doorways, until they reached a busy intersection and were reunited with their car, which had made it through the checkpoint. The car soon stopped again, this time to pick up the architect of this plan, a rebel who went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad. He looked at Austin’s get-up. “Take that thing off,” he said. “It does more harm than good.” As Austin would recount the next day in a piece for McClatchy about sneaking into the city, he received a cursory tour of central Damascus in the car, passing the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the feared secret police; circling roundabouts; and viewing the charred husk of a bombed-out building. Around sundown, the car pulled up at their destination, an FSA safe house, where Austin shared an Iftar meal with fighters who were breaking their fast on the eleventh day of Ramadan. As they ate, one of the men turned to Austin. “Welcome to Damascus,” he said.
Austin would spend most of the next two weeks in Daraya, a Sunni suburb on the southwestern outskirts of the capital, famous for the handmade wooden furniture that craftsmen churn out in their small workshops. He settled in with a group of rebels, staying in a two-story marble villa that served as the battalion’s media center. His days were divided between covering demonstrations, observing the battalion’s weapons and tactics training, and helping out with a street cleanup after the regime cut public services to the area. There were also moments of levity, playing Counter-Strike with his hosts and ringing in his thirty-first birthday with a pool party complete with whiskey and a Taylor Swift sound track.
Though embedded with the rebels, Austin did what he could to present a balanced view of the war. On August 3, McClatchy had run his piece on alleged executions and human rights abuses perpetrated by the rebels.
Six days later he took a two-day trip to Jdeidet Artouz, a nearby suburb, to film a TV spot on a government massacre that left fifty dead. His guide, a young activist and Palestinian refugee who goes by the pseudonym Adam Boudy, helped translate as Austin interviewed family members of victims of the raid and was struck by his charisma. “Everyone wanted to talk to him. He was very magnetic, and he was able to get what he needed as a journalist. His charisma gave him the keys to the people,” Boudy said.
Back in Daraya, Austin’s Internet access was spotty over the next few days. He feared the government was jamming it, and he was growing anxious about his safety. “He was concerned he had been inside too long and that his presence was becoming a known quantity by the regime,” Ghosh-Siminoff said.
Austin often referred to his time in Syria as his “crazy summer vacation,” but by mid-August he was ready for a break. He prepared to leave Damascus and head to the Lebanese border by car, for a few weeks of relaxation in Beirut, where he planned to meet a friend. But he never arrived. Austin’s stream of tweets, Google Chats, emails, and texts suddenly stopped, and messages to him went unreturned. His editors determined that the last time his satellite phone transmitted was August 13. After two months and 21 days in Syria, Austin Tice had vanished.
On August 17, Debra Tice was wrapping up a six-day canoe trip on the Boundary Waters, in the upper reaches of Minnesota. She had been happy to be back in the place where, seventeen years before, she had helped chaperone a Boy Scout canoe trip for Austin’s fourteenth birthday. Soon after pulling her boat out of the water, she called to check in with her husband in Houston.
“I don’t have any good news, and I have more bad news than you’re expecting,” Marc Tice told her, “so decide how you want to hear it.”
Her husband typically wasn’t cryptic, so this unsettled her. She walked out to the dock, where she could be alone. It was there, surrounded by pine trees and the sound of gently lapping water, that she heard the news that her firstborn son was missing.
All week Marc had been trying to rationalize the radio silence from Austin. They had last emailed at 6:40 a.m. Houston time on August 13, the middle of the afternoon in Damascus. Austin had planned to leave for Beirut the next morning, so a certain degree of disconnectedness was to be expected. But after four days without any form of communication, Marc broke down and contacted Mark Seibel at McClatchy.
Seibel said he hadn’t heard from Austin either. He was concerned and so were editors at the Post.
Later that afternoon, a State Department official called Marc in Houston. “They uttered that classic line, ‘Are you sitting down?’ But, of course, by then, I knew what they were calling about,” he recounted.
Marc and Debra Tice, at their home, in Houston.PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL SALLANS
Soon the Tices found themselves in Washington for meetings at the FBI and the State Department. McClatchy went public with the news on August 23, reporting that Austin “has been incommunicado for more than a week.” Journalists in Antakya and Beirut and inside Syria mobilized. The Liwan Hotel, built in the twenties as a mansion for the first president of Syria and recently reborn as a boutique hotel, became the unofficial headquarters in Antakya. Reporters posted up in the hotel’s courtyard restaurant or darkened bar and worked their contacts, trying to piece together the murky circumstances surrounding Austin’s disappearance. (Among the journalists at the Liwan Hotel was James Foley, who had spent a few days with Austin outside Homs and who would be kidnapped one hundred days after Austin, in Idlib Province.)
Their task, already a thankless one, was further complicated when forces loyal to President Assad, using tanks and engaging in house-to-house searches, began assaulting the Daraya suburb, where Austin had been staying, a week after his disappearance. More than four hundred people were killed, making it the bloodiest massacre of the Syrian conflict up to that point. Journalists in the region eventually heard several stories about Austin, most involving a cab driver that he’d called. Perhaps the cab driver had sold him out, or maybe he had been seized by government forces at a checkpoint, or maybe a group of rebels had traded him to the regime. “I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened after he got into that taxi, or if he even did,” Enders wrote to me.
All early reports seemed to indicate that Austin had been detained by the regime. The first public indication of this came on August 27, when Eva Filipi, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to Damascus, said in an interview with a Czech television reporter during a trip back to Prague, “From one of our sources we came by the news that he is alive, and he was detained by government forces in the suburbs of Damascus.” On August 31, a State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. government was working to confirm reports that Austin was being held but that the Syrian government had yet to respond to official inquiries regarding his whereabouts. By October, U.S. officials’ wording had become less ambiguous. “There’s a lot of reason for the Syrian government to duck responsibility, but we continue to believe that, to the best of our knowledge, we think he is in Syrian government custody,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters. But the Assad regime has never admitted involvement in Austin’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, the Tices got a sense of Austin’s impact on Syrians on September 7, when demonstrators at the weekly Friday protests in Yabroud held up posters bearing Austin’s picture and calling for his release. “Freedom for Austin Tice, who lighted Syria with his lens,” one read in Arabic. “Seeing that protest was actually one of the most emotional things for me,” Marc said. “He talked to a lot of people in Yabroud and obviously made a big impression on them.”
No demands or proof of life were forthcoming. In late September, a shaky, 46-second video was posted to YouTube and later to a pro-Assad Facebook page. Marc was alerted to it by an editor at McClatchy in the middle of the night on October 2, when his phone chimed at 2:15 a.m., jolting him awake. He walked downstairs to watch the clip; as he saw what unfolded, the color drained from his face. The blurry video opens with a shot of a ramshackle convoy of vehicles driving on a dirt road alongside hills covered with stubby, thorny brush. Then a group of men wearing freshly pressed shalwar kameezes, tactical vests, and black headbands, with assault rifles and RPG launchers slung across their shoulders, roughly hustle a blindfolded Austin out of a white pickup truck and up a rocky hillside while shouting “Allahu akbar.” Austin, wearing the same green shirt he had worn on CBS News not long before he disappeared and sporting a newly sprouted beard, looks distraught and bewildered. He recites the Bismillah—“In the name of Allah”—in broken Arabic before sighing and adding, in breathless English, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.”
Shaken, Marc walked over to the sofa in the living room, dreading the moment he had to show the video to his wife. But he didn’t have to wait long. Debra woke up and, upon discovering he wasn’t in bed with her, knew something was wrong and went looking for him. They hunched over the computer and watched the chilling clip together to verify that it was indeed their son. But the Tices found a glimmer of hope in the title of the video: “Austin Tice still alive.” It’s the only time the Tices have gotten a glimpse of their son since his capture.
“Whoever is holding him, the first message they sent us was that he was alive. I feel certain they must have known that we would be concerned that he had been injured in the attack on Daraya, so there’s this desire for us to be assured that he’s alive, that he’s coming home,” Debra told me this March. “It’s almost like an expression of compassion: ‘I can’t really end your suffering, but I can give you an Advil.’ ”
Immediately, pundits, journalists, and intelligence analysts began speculating about the origin of the clip, finding that it lacked the hallmarks of typical jihadi videos—slick editing, a prominent logo, a credits page. This led Joseph Holliday, of the Institute for the Study of War, to tell the Post, “It’s like a caricature of a jihadi group.” The clothes weren’t right either: no one in Syria at that point was wearing shalwar kameezes, the tunic-and-pants outfit favored by Afghan men. Joshua Landis, the Middle East expert at the University of Oklahoma, told me, “At the time I looked at it, everyone was asking if it was authentic; at the time it seemed rather staged.” An activist who spent time with Austin near Damascus put it this way: “I think all the Syrian activists believe that the video was a show. And the only real thing in that show was Austin, unfortunately.”
In November 2012, two months after the video surfaced and three months after Austin went missing, the Tices made the first of four trips to Beirut. They rented an apartment and met with American, Russian, and British diplomats. At a press conference at the Beirut Press Club on November 12, they told a packed room of reporters that they were in the region in hopes that anyone with knowledge of their son’s whereabouts would get in contact with them. They acknowledged that their family was now part of a larger story. “We know that we’re not the only family that’s suffering. Austin’s silence gave us some understanding about the anxieties and uncertainty that so many families in this part of the world face,” Marc told reporters. They stayed in Beirut twice as long as they had planned, returning home in late November for the first of three Thanksgiving meals without their son. “When we left for that trip,” Debra told me, “we were really thinking that we were coming home with Austin.”
Their son’s disappearance has since taken over the Tices’ lives, and they have joined a small but active community of American parents whose children have been kidnapped in Syria. They became especially close to Diane and John Foley, who first reached out to them in early 2013. Their sons had become friends inside Syria and had been kidnapped within four months of each other, and now their families faced the same unhappy limbo.
On August 19, 2014, as the Tices prepared for a candlelight prayer vigil marking Austin’s two years of captivity, they received crushing news: a video had appeared online showing James Foley’s beheading by ISIS. Videos showing the deaths of four more prisoners would follow over the next three months: American freelancer Steven Sotloff on September 2, then British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and American aid worker Peter Kassig. The footage spurred the Obama administration to take military action against ISIS and awoke the White House to the necessity of changing U.S. hostage policy. The government had forbidden private citizens to raise and pay ransoms for kidnapped Americans, even while some Europeans, without such restrictions from their governments, were paying extremist groups to secure release of their loved ones.
The Tices, who had been less than enthused about most of their interactions with the government prior to the policy review, twice traveled to Washington to suggest policy changes to government officials. This June, they returned to Washington and, sitting in a room with other families in the Executive Office Building, listened as the president personally laid out the changes to the hostage policy: the government would create a “fusion cell” at the FBI to coordinate interagency efforts; each family would be appointed a “family engagement coordinator”; and, perhaps most important, families would no longer be threatened with prosecution for raising ransoms. The Tices were heartened by the changes, which they said would have helped when Austin first went missing, though they’ve never received a ransom demand or any communication from his captors.
So where is Austin? The Tices say they don’t know for certain, but they do receive word periodically, from credible sources both within the American government and abroad, that he is alive and “reasonably well treated.” They say they know he’s not being held by ISIS or any part of the Syrian opposition. “We believe it is a Syrian entity of one type or another that’s holding him,” Marc said during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington this February. “The exact circumstances of Austin’s captivity are still, to a large degree, a mystery to us. We don’t know details and specifics. We have heard . . . that we need to be patient, that there is a general confidence that he will come home safely.”
Austin worked so hard to bring awareness to the plight of the Syrian people, and his parents are trying to keep up that mission while making sure his plight also receives ample attention. This year the Tices launched an awareness campaign about Austin, partnering with Reporters Without Borders and New York advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. At least 267 news sites donated ad space to the campaign, with the New York Times and the Washington Post each running full-page ads. As part of the campaign, more than eight hundred black blindfolds were printed with #FreeAustinTice, so people could take photos of themselves wearing them and post the images to social media. The most recent public development in the case came in late March, when the French newspaper Le Figaro published a story asserting that “an emissary representing the U.S. government” had visited Austin at a prison in Damascus. The piece went on to claim that the U.S. and Syria were directly negotiating for Austin’s release. State Department officials denied most of the story but did concede that they have been in “periodic, direct contact” with the Syrian government over certain consular issues, including Austin’s case.
In the meantime, being the parent of a hostage continues to be a full-time job. During a panel discussion at the New America Foundation this April, Debra told the audience that her whole life is devoted to “determining who is holding my son and how to bring him safely home.” This work has taken her to national television studios, to conference rooms in drab government office buildings, and, this past spring, to Paris’s Place de la République, where she spoke onstage before a crowd of more than 10,000 on World Press Freedom Day to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Reporters Without Borders. On her most recent trip to Beirut, which spanned this May and June, Debra sliced her foot open on a jagged pipe while crossing the street. In the ambulance on the way to the American University in Beirut Medical Center, the paramedic told her that he was a UN volunteer and knew all about her son. “You’re the mother of my hero,” he said.
On most days, there is little the Tices can do. Nearly every morning, Debra wakes up at 4 a.m.—noon in the Middle East—and looks over Twitter to see if anything has shifted overnight. They sift through Google Alerts and tweets and various websites for information. “We’re hopeful about any little change in the region that might give the slightest hope that Austin will be released. We’re always looking for any kind of earth move,” Debra said. This process continues throughout the day. The last thing Marc does before bed is check his phone and Twitter feed. “If I hear a ding in the middle of the night, I check it. That’s when things seem to happen,” he said. “I’m always checking.” One day when I was visiting, Debra got a message from Marc to look into news regarding a meeting between Iranian and Jordanian intelligence agencies. These news tidbits usually don’t amount to much, though the recent nuclear deal with Iran—a close Shiite ally of the Assad regime—and the possibility of Syrian peace talks have given the Tices hope for movement on Austin’s case. But it’s still largely out of their control, and that’s perhaps the most frustrating aspect.
Debra, who is used to being an integral part of her children’s lives, now has no action to take. “If there’s ever a problem, I’m all over it,” she said. “So part of the frustration is there’s nothing I can put my hands around, there’s nobody I can shake down.” August 13 marked three years since Austin disappeared, and mostly what they’ve heard from his captors is infuriating silence.
This March Debra and Marc sat in the living room of their ivy-covered red-brick home and showed me old family photos of Austin. Here he is as a toddler with a blue knit cap pulled down over his ears, standing in a pile of leaves in front of his newly built jungle gym. Here he is at sixteen, with the bicycle-powered contraption he built to wheel his lawn mower around the neighborhood to increase the number of lawns he could hit in one day.
Across the room, hanging on the wall, is a shiny black plaque. This is his George Polk Award, one of the most prestigious honors in journalism. It was presented to Austin in absentia in February 2013 for his McClatchy stories. His parents know he will barely be able to contain himself when he finally sees it. Just above the engraving of Austin’s name, the award lists the field that the former law student and Marine—after just a few months of work—had reached the pinnacle of: “war reporting.”
August 19, 2015
Texas’ Austin Tice: Captive Three Years
Aug 19 2015
A little more than three years ago, Houston-native Austin Tice was taken captive in Syria. His many accolades include Eagle Scout, Marine, and journalist, but his more important titles are friend, brother, and son.
Austin’s family is not just counting the days and minutes he’s been gone, but they’re counting the milestones missed over the past three years, too.
I renew my call for Austin’s immediate release by his captors and strongly urge the Obama Administration to utilize all possible means necessary to bring Austin home safely. I’ve recently introduced legislation establishing an Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator to create a unified government response to hostage situations like Austin’s.
While nothing can undo the pain he and his loved ones have endured, as a nation we must do everything we possibly can to find Austin and bring this Texan home.
Photo Courtesy the Tice Family
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May 3, 2015 L’OBS (France) Interview: Debra Tice: “I wanted to see people in the streets demanding the release of my son”
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April 23, 2015
Freelancer Austin Tice, detained in Syria, to receive Aubuchon Press Freedom Award
April 23, 2015 | By John Donnelly | jdonnelly@cq.com
American freelance reporter Austin Tice, detained in Syria since 2012, will receive one of the club’s most prestigious honors.
The club will give Tice a John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award at its annual awards dinner July 29. The Aubuchon award recognizes those whose work has demonstrated the courage that lies at the heart of a free press.
Tice joins Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter detained in Iran, as recipients of the Club’s domestic freedom of the press award this year. The club announced Rezaian’s award on March 12. The Club also recognizes a foreign journalist annually.
Tice, a freelance reporter, left home for Syria in May 2012 to tell the story of the conflict in that country and its impact on the ordinary people there. His work was published by McClatchy Newspapers, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, AFP and others.
In August 2012, Tice disappeared near Damascus. It still remains uncertain who holds him, but he is believed to be alive and not held by the Islamic State militant group, according to credible sources.
“Austin Tice embodies the best of our profession, and whoever is jailing him represents the worst of the many threats to journalism,” Club President John Hughes said. “In giving this award, we want to particularly make sure the world remembers Tice and the other freelancers who often work in dangerous places without adequate support and protection.”
Hughes announced the award at the start of a half-day program today at the club to discuss baseline standards for protecting freelance journalists who work in war zones. The club’s Journalism Institute, the Investigative Reporting Workshop and the Committee to Protect Journalists are holding the event.
Tice’s parents thanked the club for the honor.
“This is an important recognition that both Jason and Austin are being held because of their commitment to gather, record and report the news,” Tice’s parents said. “With them, we believe that freedom of information and expression is a self-evident unalienable right belonging to every person. We earnestly hope and pray Austin and Jason will be here in July to personally accept this prestigious award.”
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ABC Channel 13 Houston – Sonia Azad
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Houston Chronicle: Houston mother of hostage wants a new look at U.S. policy
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By Sonia AzadMarc and Debra Tice are in the fight of their lives.
“We’d love to hear his voice, to communicate with him,” said Marc Tice. “Every time the phone rings, we hope it’s Austin calling for a ride.”
Their son Austin, a former U.S. Marine, Georgetown law student and freelance journalist was captured two years ago in a suburb of Damascus, Syria.
“We have no reason to believe he’s held with ISIS,” his father told us in a one-on-one interview. Austin’s mother continued, “Early on, we decided that to try to speculate was just another way of wasting energy. Instead of trying to figure it out, we would just like to know.”
The Houston couple has sent messages to Syria through intermediaries, and hope Austin is somewhere safe, watching and hearing everything.
“We hear through credible sources that we should not worry, that he is alive and he is safe and he is not ill-treated and we need to be patient,” said Debra Tice. Her husband added, “At the same time, they never come with any proof, or evidence, anything concrete, anyone to contact directly, and that’s what we’re really looking for.”
Through airstrike campaigns led by the U.S. government and a series of recent gruesome beheadings of other American journalists, the Tices are frustrated with the pace and process to get their son back. Still, 773 days into their fight, they hold on to hope.
“We always hope that any changes in what’s going on (in Syria) will create an opportunity for a channel of communication or for someone – whoever it is that’s holding Austin-to decide things are different now, and we’ll send this boy home.”
Austin’s parents are encouraging their friends and neighbors in Houston to communicate with President Barack Obama the importance of seeing Austin get safely back home.
September 24, 2014
September 23, 2014
September 23, 2014
Parents of U.S. journalist who went missing in Syria want answers
September 23, 2014
September 18, 2014
September 10, 2014
September 10, 2014
August 17, 2014
August 15, 2014
August 14, 2014
August 14, 2014
August 14, 2014
Many thanks to our dear friends and Austin’s fantastic colleagues at McClatchy News for their unwavering support. McClatchy DC
Thank you to Fox 26 Houston KRIV Television and Randy Wallace for sharing Austin’s story on his 33rd Birthday:
July 30, 2014
We thank the Senator for speaking on Austin’s behalf, and for his steadfast commitment to bring Austin safely home.
December 22, 2013
July 05, 2013
Parents of reporter missing in Syria plead for news
By Sara Hussein (AFP) – Jul 5, 2013
BEIRUT — Debra Tice wakes up each morning hoping her life will have changed and the 11 months since her son Austin disappeared in Syria will turn out to have been a bad dream.
But since she and her husband Marc learnt that their 31-year-old first-born had gone missing while reporting in the war-torn country, not a single morning has given her that relief.
“I just wake up and think, I woke up again and nothing has changed, it wasn’t a dream,” she told AFP in Beirut, where she and her husband are looking for information about their missing child.
“I put my feet on the floor and I build a wall around my emotions and I just think about what strength I need for today,” she added.
Austin Tice was in law school in the United States when he decided to head to Syria last year to try to kickstart a journalism career.
He contributed to the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers, among others, and was awarded a prestigious Polk award after his disappearance in August 2012.
Since then, his parents and his six brothers and sisters have had almost no information about him.
In September, a video showing him purportedly being held by radical Islamists surfaced, but questions were raised about whether those shown in the video were really militants, and Marc Tice says the recording “raised more questions than it answered”.
Still, he says, the video proved their son was still alive — a rare moment of relief in an otherwise agonising search for information that has included two trips to the region and numerous meetings with anyone who will talk to them.
“We will meet with anybody,” Debra says. “If you tell me a taxi driver on a street corner in the middle of nowhere knows how to get my son home, I will go meet with him.”
“We would go to Damascus, if it was purposeful, if we were invited,” adds Marc.
US officials believe Tice is being held by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which is fighting an armed rebellion triggered by a bloody crackdown on democracy protests that broke out in March 2011.
The Tices say the Syrian government denies any record of their son being in the country, but has agreed to search for him.
“Honestly, we’re not that interested in who or why, we’re interested in how do we get him back, what is needed to return him to us safely,” Marc says.
As part of their search, the family has set up a website, www.austinticefamily.com, where anyone with information can contact them.
And they urge their son’s captors to reach out.
“We ask you to keep him safe, take care of him, let him know that he’s loved and people are looking for him and especially let us know how we can bring him home again.”
In the meanwhile, Tice’s family are trying to lead something approaching a normal life, celebrating birthdays and graduations.
“You can just never really give your heart fully to joy, because there’s this ‘where’s our big guy?’ feeling,” Debra says.
“He’s so profoundly missing for us.”
The separation is particularly hard for Debra, who homeschooled her seven children.
“The only thing I ever wanted to do was to be a mummy of lots of kids!” she laughs.
Tice is one of at least seven reporters missing in Syria, including James Foley, an American video contributor to AFP who has not been heard from since last November.
The Tices say they have reached out to the families of other missing reporters to share information and support.
“It’s a club that the membership price is very steep, no one wants to join,” Debra says quietly.
She thinks often about how she will react when she is reunited with Austin.
“You know that feeling when your child lets go of your hand in the mall?” she says with a smile.
“You’re frantic and you’re looking, and then you find them, and first you hug them and then you spank them? It’s that kind of reaction.”
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.
July 03, 2013
Karen Leigh (@leighstream) – Syria Deeply – July 03, 2013
In Beirut, A Family’s Search for Austin Tice
On August 13, 2012, Austin Tice, a 31-year-old American journalist writing for McClatchy newswires, the Washington Post and other publications vanished without a trace from the Damascus suburb where he’d been living and working.
Tice, a former USMC infantry officer, had put his law studies at Georgetown University on hold to cover the Syrian conflict.
In May, Global Post, investigating the disappearance of one of its own freelance reporters, James Foley, said it believed Foley, along with at least one other American journalist (widely believed to be Tice) was being held by the Syrian regime in the vicinity of the capital.
On a fact-finding visit to Beirut this week, Austin’s parents, Marc and Debra Tice, talked with Syria Deeply.
Syria Deeply: You had to be nervous when he said, “I’m moving to Syria.”
Marc: Going back to when he told us that he was going to go to Syria in the first place, if you know Austin, you know that he’s not reckless, he’s incredibly thoughtful, he’s not impulsive. He’s also incredibly passionate and determined, and when he decides he needs to do something, that’s what he’s going to do. He didn’t go lightly. He talked to a lot of people before he went. He does have training. He’s not new to areas of crisis. So we had that confidence. On the other hand, of course you’re concerned.
Debra: But I still get concerned when he’s home and rides his bike without a helmet.
Austin Tice / Courtesy Tice Family
Marc: Or the motorcycle he bought.
Debra: Oh my gosh.
Marc: We learned a long time ago not to talk him out of something. We try to ask whatever questions we can ask to make sure he’s thought of anything. What advice do we have to give him about journalism in Syria? We don’t have any.
Debra: My personality – Austin was home-schooled – is that a job half-done is a job wholly undone. So for him to want to tell this story, he needed to do all he could to get the whole story. It was important to him to try to understand all sides of the story. He just wouldn’t be satisfied with half. It had to be all.
SD: Was it an anomaly not to hear from him?
Marc: If we didn’t Google chat or Facebook with him [personally], we saw where he had chatted or emailed or talked to somebody, and we know all the people he was talking to. So pretty much every day, we’d communicate with him or know he was communicating with someone. One time we didn’t hear from him for two days, and –
Debra: I knew that I was on very thin ice when I picked up the phone for the first time, found his editor’s name and number in a directory, and called and said, I know I’m going to be in really big trouble for this, but …
Marc: And sure enough, when he popped back up, he was furious. “That was so unprofessional! I don’t want my mom calling my editor!” But his editor was a bear of a guy with a big heart.
Debra: They’ve been stellar for us.
Marc: That was the only time we’d not been in touch or heard anything from him.
Debra: And then he really drilled it into us, you can’t be freaking out after five minutes of not hearing from me.
Marc: So then when it was three days, four days, we’d developed a good relationship with the people at McClatchy. Debbie was canoeing in the boundary waters in Minnesota, and I was at home. I called McClatchy, and they said, We haven’t heard from him either, and we’re concerned. We got a call back from the Washington bureau chief who said we’ve got word out, then we got a call from the State Department that they’d been alerted and were seeing what they could do. And every day since then has been, OK, tomorrow we’re going to hear from him, tomorrow he’ll be released.
Debra: Our phones are on all the time, with us.
SD: Were you aware of the risks faced in Syria by freelance journalists?
Marc: When he went, he had an arrangement with McClatchy. So we knew he had a shot – originally he was only going to do photos – and that there would be someone that would look at him and get him published. I didn’t think about insurance, support, backup. I do now. Because we’re connected to organizations like Reporters without Borders. I guess if we had known about all this, we would have asked those questions.
Debra: We knew Austin would know the questions to have asked.
Marc: I don’t worry about him knowing basic field first aid. Of course he does. And he’s big, tough and very smart.
SD: He won the Polk Award while missing. It’s arguably the most prestigious award a journalist can win for Syria coverage.
Debra: It was so affirming that he was on the right path and doing something he’s very gifted at. And on the other hand …
Marc: He will be, if he doesn’t know now, he will be thrilled. And McClatchy gave him their President’s Award. It’s a great thing, you want to celebrate, but you can’t really celebrate. It is affirming, for him and for us, I hope, confirming that he was there as a journalist, that’s what he was all about. And he wasn’t some crazy guy taking a flier. He was capable. He was a freelancer, but – he had a contract going in, he picked up a couple more when he was there, he won the Polk. He wasn’t looking for adventure. He was doing a job.
Debra: Before he left, when he was letting news outlets know that he was going, he was really adamant about personal interviews [with editors]. He really didn’t want to just have electronic relationships. He’s a firstborn son, Type A, driven, confident. In August, he started getting calls from the BBC, from CBS, saying, can you do a spot for us?
Marc: He felt trained and ready to be a photojournalist. And then his editor asked him to write a backstory on a photo. When he did, his editor said, “And now you will write an article.”
Debra: He will be thrilled and proud and happy to have been recognized for what he was doing. He was confident that he could do this, but he’d never done it before. Anytime you try your hand at something you haven’t done before professionally, succeeding is a thrill.
(The Tice family welcomes tips and information at www.austinticefamily.com.)
June 27, 2013
Parents of kidnapped American journalist in Syria urge his release
Parents of the missing American journalist, Austin Tice, in Syria urged their son’s kidnappers to release him. (Al Arabiya)
Parents of a missing American journalist in Syria urged their son’s kidnappers to release him or hand over information on his status, in an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday.
The journalist, Austin Tice, was kidnapped from a Damascus suburb called Darya on Aug. 13, 2012.
The parents are currently in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, attempting to obtain any information they can on their son’s whereabouts.
Austin’s father said the family is receiving help from both the American and Syrian government, adding that Damascus promised the family they will help find the missing journalist.
June 27, 2013
| Tice’s parents cling to hope for his return | ||||
| June 27, 2013 12:44 AM | ||||
| By Olivia Alabaster | ||||
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BEIRUT: Ten months after their son went missing in Syria, Debra and Marc Tice say that while every day feels like a recurring nightmare they are still confident that they will be reunited one day. Getting ready to head to Beirut after having spent the summer reporting for the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers, Texas native Austin was kidnapped last August, two days after his 31st birthday. His last tweet read, “Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by @taylorswift13. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.” In September, a brief video clip emerged on a pro-Assad site of a blindfolded Austin, being led by a group of armed men shouting “Allahu Akbar,” but there has been doubt cast over whether these were genuine Islamists or Assad loyalists posing as such. Speaking a month later, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that “to the best of our knowledge, we think he [Tice] is in Syrian government custody.” The Tices themselves said they would leave speculation up to others. “We’re not particularly interested in the story of how and why. We’re just interested in getting him back,” Marc said in an interview with The Daily Star Wednesday. The couple is back in Beirut to try and follow up on Austin’s case, having previously visited in November. They chose to return now, they said, due to the rapid ground developments in Syria, and the changing situation in Beirut itself. A renewed diplomatic push, namely by the U.S. and Russia for Geneva II peace talks, has also encouraged the Tices, even though it keeps being pushed back as the two sides squabble over the details. “There is so much more international and diplomatic impetus happening now. Really all we have is our voice, and we want to make sure that it is heard,” Marc said. The eldest of seven children, Austin was in the middle of a law degree when he decided to come to Syria to write, because, as Marc remembers, “he was hearing reports from Syria saying this is happening and that is happening but it can’t be confirmed because there really are no reporters on the ground. And he said, ‘You know, this is a story that the world needs to know about.’” They are reticent to say they have made progress – “progress would be something tangible. Success is when we have him home again,” Marc said. The Tices say they are encouraged that while all the Syrian government originally said was, “We don’t have him and we don’t know where he is,” they have now vowed “to us that they will look for him and that they will hold him safe and release him to us.” In a close-knit family, Austin’s absence “hangs over everything,” Marc said. The couple recounted all the birthdays and graduations he had already missed this year, but it is also the support of his younger siblings which is so vital to them now. However, he said, “the days don’t get any easier.” “It is unimaginable because you know, I wake up and realize it was not a nightmare. And so it’s just that feeling of – another day. Sometimes you don’t know if you’re waking or sleeping, because it’s so unreal,” Debra said. But while so many other people would be angry in a similar situation, the Tices believe only in forgiveness. “We’re asking for mercy and so when I feel my emotions tending in a negative way, I just think, I’m asking for mercy, so I just want to be a person who is very quick to give mercy,” Debra said. Also, Marc said, in a conflict which has left around 100,000 dead and around 18,000 missing, and rendered nearly 2 million people refugees, they recognize that they are not the only ones to suffer. “If we start getting angry or indignant,” Marc said, in the gentlest tones, “we’re humbled by the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been turned upside down. The refugees, the people that have lost their loved ones. Our pain, frustration, anger kind of pales in comparison to all of that.” “Where does anger get us? Nowhere,” he added. They would admit to being frustrated though, frustrated at the lack of a note or a call, from either Austin or his captors, “to know something definitive about how he is or where he is. But most importantly, when is he going to be back with us?” Marc asked. However, the outpouring of support has been overwhelming, the Tices said, from those who worked with Austin to strangers and officials from the State Department. Since disappearing, Austin has received two awards for his journalism – the George Polk Award for War Reporting and the McClatchy President’s Award for Journalism Excellence – but Marc and Debra could not attend because, “instead of celebration speeches, they became condolence speeches.” The message that Austin’s parents want to spread now is that whoever is holding him has gained nothing from doing so, but that “there’s something to be gained from his release. And that’s what we’re trying to get across, and trying to do what we can to make that happen.” “We have not yet touched the heart of the person holding him. So we have to keep asking, and make sure that our desire for his return, our request for mercy, gets to the right person,” Marc explained. As Debra added, “There’s no manual for this. We wish there was but … we’re making this up as we go along, and asking for help.” Anyone with details on the whereabouts of Austin Tice can contact the family at: information@austinticefamily.com. |
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June 20, 2013
Senators send letter to Secretary of State John Kerry
Senators Write Kerry about Missing Journalists
June 5, 2013
www.catholicnewsagency.com
Houston, Texas, Jun 5, 2013 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The parents of kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice have appealed again for his release, voicing gratitude for Pope Francis’ words on behalf of all abducted victims in the Syrian conflict.
“It is a tremendous comfort to know the Holy Father is praying for the people of Syria, and that he has personally appealed to the humanity of kidnappers to release their victims,” Marc and Debra Tice of Houston, Texas told CNA June 3.
On Monday, Pope Francis denounced the “scourge of kidnapping” in Syria and appealed to captors’ humanity to free the victims. Those recently abducted in the country include two Orthodox Christian bishops.
The Pope’s message was personally relevant to the Tices, whose son Austin disappeared in August 2012 near the Damascus suburb of Daraya where he was reporting on the Syrian conflict. Austin, a 31-year-old former Marine Corps captain and Georgetown University graduate, was working as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy News Service.
The Tices said their son, the oldest of seven children, is “all Texan: big, loud and friendly.” They noted how his photographs of Syrians, especially local children, show “his respect for the humanity of the Syrian people.”
“From what we’ve heard, his respect was reciprocated,” they said. “You could hear in his voice how happily and deeply he was engaged in his work.”
Austin Tice has now been missing for more than nine months.
His parents do not know for certain who is holding him captive, and recent developments in the Syrian conflict could affect Austin’s future.
Debra Tice said that the situation of the Daraya area has recently been “very fluid” as opposition groups and the Syrian government contest control.
“We feel this could increase his chances of escape or rescue and ask everyone in the area to be aggressively searching for him in order to secure his safe return to us,” she explained.
“Additionally, the upcoming U.S.- and Russian-led peace talks scheduled in Geneva offer an opportunity for discussion by all parties regarding the release of captives.”
Marc Tice also saw some hopeful signs. “The best development in the past few months has been the commitment we’ve received from more than one Syrian official,” he said. “They’ve told us and others that the Syrian government will do everything it can to locate Austin and return him safely.
“We have been assured through many channels that Austin is alive and being treated well, yet we have no concrete evidence of who is holding him or how to secure his release and return.”
In September 2012 a 47-second video of the journalist was posted on a pro-Syrian government website and appears to implicate Islamic militants in the kidnapping. The clip shows Austin blindfolded in the custody of armed men as he tries to recite in Arabic the shahada or Muslim declaration of faith, the Associated Press reported. He then switches to English and says “Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”
Some critics of the video have said it appears to be staged, possibly by pro-Syrian government forces who want to discredit the opposition, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in December 2012.
The Czech embassy, which is representing the U.S. in Syria after its own embassy closed in 2011, in December said its sources believe Tice is being held captive by the Syrian government. The Syrian government, however, denied those reports.
Syria’s contradicting stories are part of what drew Austin Tice to the country. His father said he was among those who sought to find the truth about the two-year-old conflict between supporters and opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad.
“Austin told me he was frustrated by early reports out of Syria which couldn’t be confirmed because no verifiable reports were available,” Marc said.
“He told me he believed the story of this conflict needed to be told and that he believed he had the skills to do it. Considering the recognition and awards he’s received for his work, I’m inclined to believe he was right.”
Since his kidnapping, Tice has been awarded the George Polk Award for War Reporting and the McClatchy President’s Award for Journalism Excellence.
Austin’s parents said their son did not join them in converting to Catholicism in 1999, but he was raised with “a firm foundation in the Christian faith.”
“He has memorized a great deal of Holy Scripture and learned the Catechism,” his parents said. “He enjoyed listening to theological discussions on Christian radio. In times of stress and trouble, he relies on the unwavering love of God.”
Debra reflected that her faith has helped her during this time of uncertainty.
“I firmly believe God is in control and pray for His will to be done. I know it is God’s desire for all people to live in peace. I pray constantly for an outpouring of mercy to restore peace to our family, to Syria, the Levant, and the entire world,” she said.
She also noted the positive effect of knowing that people around the world are praying for Austin and the Tice family. “These prayers give us hope and strength; undoubtedly they are also a source of great comfort for our son.”
Marc said that the kidnapping of his son “has challenged the foundations on which my faith has been built – much of which I am sure needed to be challenged.”
“As a convert to Catholicism, I was especially drawn to the way the Church expressed faith as a journey, and how understanding and enlightenment was not necessarily a flash of brilliance, rather a life-long process. I trust this part of my journey will leave me not only changed but stronger,” he said.
Debra voiced her love in a message directed to her son, saying: “We work and pray daily for your safe return. Do not despair; remain steadfast in faith.”
Both parents urged their son’s captors to keep him safe and treat him well. “Have compassion on us and let him come home,” Marc said.
The Tice family asks anyone with information about Austin to contact them through their website, www.austinticefamily.com.
May 31, 2013
Missing Journalist Austin Tice’s Parents To Travel To Beirut
May 31, 2013
by: AP
In a statement issued through a family spokesman Thursday, Austin Tice’s parents said they plan to travel from Houston to Beirut soon “to reach more deeply into the region on behalf of our son.”
Marc and Debra Tice say they’re uncertain who is holding their son. They asked all sides of the Syrian insurrection to “keep Austin in their minds” as peace talks approach. They also ask that the Syrian government “search vigorously for Austin in order to secure his safe return.”
The 31-year-old ex-Marine was one of a few journalists reporting from Damascus when he vanished last August.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013
Full Length Interview: Fox Report with Shepard Smith
May 31, 2013
Associated Press
Missing Journalist’s Parents to Travel to Beirut
The parents of a freelance journalist who disappeared while covering civil war in Syria said Thursday that they hope upcoming talks aimed at peace between the Syrian government and rebels will hasten his release.
In a statement issued through a family spokesman, Austin Tice’s parents said they plan to travel from Houston to Beirut soon “to reach more deeply into the region on behalf of our son.”
The statement is the first issued by the family since a video of Tice was posted online in late September. The 47-second video, which Marc and Debra Tice called “distressing” in their Thursday statement, showed their son blindfolded and saying “Oh, Jesus” in a frightened voice in the custody of armed men.
The video shows Tice trying to recite the Muslim declaration of faith, or shahada, until he switches to English and says, “Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus,” and rests his head on a captor’s arm.
The video was the first sign of Austin Tice’s condition since he disappeared in August. Tice, a 31-year-old former Marine, had been reporting on Syria’s civil war for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and others. He was one of a few journalists reporting from Damascus when he vanished.
His parents said they were uncertain who is holding their son. “Above all, we request that the Syrian government search vigorously for Austin in order to secure his safe return. Soon, we plan to return to Beirut to reach more deeply into the region on behalf of our son,” the Houston couple said.
Their statement details some family celebrations and journalistic honors awarded to Austin Tice since his disappearance. They asked all sides of the Syrian insurrection to “keep Austin in their minds” in peace talks.
The international community had hoped the two sides would start talks next month on a political transition. However, the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said earlier Thursday that it would not attend a conference, linking the decision to a regime offensive on the western Syrian town of Qusair and claiming that hundreds of wounded people were trapped there.
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Interview: Fox Report with Shepard Smith
May 29, 2013
Interview with PressTV
Parents of missing American journalist in Syria hopeful
The American freelance journalist, who has been writing regularly for the Washington Post and other US media, has gone missing in Syria since mid-August 2012.
Austin’s parents are hopeful that Geneva 2 talks would be successful and that a solution would end the suffering and impact of the conflict in Syria.
“Well one thing that is clear or is at least clear to us is that the situation in Syria is extremely fluid, changing from day to day and one of our hopes and I guess maybe it’s just a parent’s hope is that with changes and with movements the opportunity for Austin to be found is greater,” Austin’s parents told Press TV.
“It would be our desire that hostilities and violence stop and we hope the international community can find a way for that to happen,” they added.
“But at the same time we are very hopeful that someone that sees this interview or hears us speaking and knows something about our son, where Austin is, would contact us.”
On Monday, Yara Abbas, working with Syria’s private al-Ikhbariya TV, was killed by sniper fire near al-Daba’a military airport, just outside Qusayr, as she was covering an army assault on the airport.
The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on May 23, “Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis.”
IA/PR
December 21, 2012
Free war-zone journalist Austin Tice
By Marcus Brauchli and Anders Gyllenhaal, Published: December 21
Marcus Brauchli is executive editor of The Washington Post, and Anders Gyllenhaal is vice president for news at McClatchy. They can be reached at brauchlim@washpost.com and agyllenhaal@mcclatchy.com.
Austin Tice was well on his way to a law degree when the pull of journalism got to be too much for him. Fascinated with the Middle East and frustrated with news coverage he saw as often too shallow, he decided to see if he could do better.
“It always drove Austin crazy when they’d say on the news, this couldn’t be confirmed because it’s too difficult to report,’’ Marc Tice, Austin’s father, told us. “He thought, ‘I’ve got the ability to do this. I can get in there and get these stories.’ ’’
Four months ago, Tice was captured in Syria, where he had been delivering on that commitment with fresh and compelling freelance reports that were regularly published in The Post and McClatchy newspapers. While the wait for news on his whereabouts drags on, we want to make the case for why this work is so vital and why he should be released.
We also want to draw attention to the delicate role of foreign reporters in places such as Syria. Understanding the savage tableau of war helps citizens, societies and governments make judgments and set policies that affect millions of people. At its best, journalism may save lives by making the costs and consequences of war more vivid.
Inevitably, journalists take risks when they cover wars. We have both lost friends and colleagues in battle; one of us has a brother, a photographer, who was wounded seriously 20 years ago in Sarajevo. But the risks should not include kidnapping, torture or murder.
And yet, so far this year, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 67 journalists have been killed in direct relation to their work.
In Syria, the number killed in combat or murdered this year is 28, a rate that the committee says approaches the worst annual tally of the Iraq war. Foreign and Syrian reporters alike have been killed. Even the head of Libya’s state-run news agency, SANA, was assassinated. This week, five days after they were kidnapped, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, and his crew escaped following a gunfight between their captors and rebels.
Many of the journalists at risk in conflict zones today aren’t on staff at big, traditional news organizations. The uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East have attracted freelance journalists who don’t need mainstream news outlets to reach an audience. New technologies enable them to upload video directly to YouTube or report battles in real time to followers on Twitter or Facebook.
Like many freelancers, Tice followed an unusual path to foreign reporting, an assignment that can take decades to earn on a big newspaper’s staff. A captain in the Marines who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tice left the service and enrolled in Georgetown University’s law school. It was just after his second year when he decided to give in to the tug of journalism that dated to high school.
Equipped with cameras, an exquisite writing talent and an instinct for finding his way to the center of things, Tice slipped over the Turkish border into Syria in May. At one point, he managed to get by checkpoints in Damascus by dressing as a woman despite his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame.
His work has been courageous and professional, contributing to the montage of truth that has shaped the world’s understanding of the Syrian conflict. Although he traveled mostly with the rebels, Tice was as interested in one side as the other, in capturing opposing viewpoints and casualties.
He focused on how the rebels were gaining momentum over the summer. He also helped to break the news in August that rebels were carrying out executions and torture. He was often on the front lines of the conflict. He celebrated his 31st birthday, he noted in his last Twitter post before his capture in mid-August, to the sounds of bombs landing nearby.
Information on his captivity, and even on who is holding him, has been hard to confirm despite the constant efforts of his family, our news organizations and other contacts in the United States and other governments.
Tice entered Syria without a visa, as have the majority of those covering this story. As he enters his fifth month of captivity, he has long since paid the price if this is seen as a violation of the country’s borders.
We believe his own story makes the best argument for his release.
He surely has met the high standards of quality and fairness he first thought about back in Afghanistan. Austin Tice has served both Syria and the wider world with reporting that cannot exist without such dedicated journalists. Those responsible for his capture and detention have a moral obligation to return him to his family, his friends and his work.
Read more from Tice and Syria:
Austin Tice and Liz Sly: Syrian rebels still hopeful as government regains initiative in Damascus
Austin Tice: In Syria, an oasis from war
December 13, 2012
Interview with Christiane Amanpour
By Claire Calzonetti, Samuel Burke & Mick Krever CNN
“I don’t have a death wish; I have a life wish,” Austin Tice wrote after his third month in Syria, working as a freelance journalist. “Coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the greatest feeling of my life.”
That was in July. A month later he was kidnapped, and is still missing today.
His parents, Marc and Debra Tice, say they are “absolutely” certain Austin is still alive. They sat down for a rare interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday to explain their son’s story, and plead for his safe return.
Thirty-one-year-old Austin Tice disappeared in mid-August while reporting outside Damascus. His writing had been featured in the Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers.
In what would be the final Tweet before his capture in August, the Texas native appeared to be in good spirits. On August 11 he wrote, “Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by [Taylor Swift]. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.”
The Tices talked almost daily with their son, then suddenly they heard nothing from him for weeks.
After an agonizing wait, a video of the journalist surfaced on YouTube in September. The 47-second video showed Tice, obviously in distress, being led up a hill by armed and masked men chanting “Allahu Akbar” – God is the greatest.
Debra Tice said she went into physical shock when she saw the video, but also realized what it meant: Austin was still alive.
Tice’s father told Amanpour that “No parents, no family should see their son, their child, their sibling, in those circumstances,” but he hopes the video might ultimately lead to contact with whomever is holding their son.
Analysts say the video looks staged and that there are reasons to believe the men in the video are not the Islamic extremists they purport to be.
The U.S. State Department believes Tice is actually being held by the Syrian regime, a charge Damascus denies.
Tice’s parents say they do not want to speculate about who is holding him – they just want their son back home.
Debra Tice described Austin, the eldest of her seven children, as a passionate man. She tried to explain, for a mother, the seemingly inexplicable: Why her son would go to one of the most violent countries on earth.
“He likes to know what’s going on in the world,” she said, and he was frustrated by the lack first-hand reporting from Syria’s civil war. He told her, “‘I’m someone that can go. I can face that danger because this story is important.’”
On the chance that Austin sees the interview his parents spoke directly to him: “Austin, we love you … we’re doing everything we can to get you safely home.”
The Tice family has established a website to help find their son: http://www.austinticefamily.com/
December 12, 2012
Interview with Alhurra (Arabic)
November 18, 2012
Interview with RT TV (Arabic)
http://arabic.rt.com/news_all_news/news/600075/
Our thanks to RT TV’s Arabic language service for conducting and broadcasting this interview, which was done during our trip to Beirut seeking support for Austin’s release.
November 12, 2012
Transcript of Press Conference at Beirut Press Club
Marc: Thank you for coming here today. My name is Marc Tice, and this is my wife Debra. We are the parents of Austin Tice, a journalist who was last working in Syria and with whom we’ve had no contact since August 13. We’re here today to appeal for information about Austin. If anyone who hears this has any information about Austin and especially what we can do to bring him home, please tell us. We have a website where you can send us an email: austinticefamily.com.
We know we are not the only family who has suffered. Austin’s silence has given us some understanding of the anxieties and uncertainties that so many families in this part of the world are experiencing. We love our son. He is a fine man, a good journalist and we want everything to be well with him. We ask whoever is holding Austin to treat him well, to keep him safe, and to return him to us as soon as possible. Again, anyone who hears this and can help us find Austin, talk with him and get him back safely, please send us an email information@austintice.com.
Now Debi would like to say a few words:
Debi: Thank you all for coming, we really appreciate it and we count on your support. Austin is the oldest of our seven children. We are a big close family. We have all felt a terrible void in this prolonged silence. With the approaching holiday season we are even more dismayed by the empty chair at our family table. We miss Austin’s knowing smile, his big laugh and his great story telling. The energetic joy in our home has been greatly diminished by his absence. Austin loves being the big brother, he hugs and lifts his sister off the floor, and he constantly challenges his brothers to excellence. When they play games, a great and rare joy is expressed in besting Austin.
Austin is a cherished son and beloved brother. If he were your son and your brother I ask, what would you do to find him and return him to your family? Who would you most want to speak to? We are asking that anyone who can put us in touch with information about Austin – please go to our website, austinticefamily.com, and contact us. We love Austin dearly and will do anything to have him safely return to our family.
And now I’d like to speak directly to my son, in case he can hear this. My precious Austin, I love you dearly. I hold you tenderly in my heart and I pray for you constantly. Your brothers and sisters love you and think of you every minute. Be assured we will do all we can to bring you safely home.
Questions (transcribed as closely as possible)
Q: When did you last hear of him, how long was he in Syria? Were you in touch with him and where did he go in from?
Marc: The last contact we had from him was on August 13. What we want more than anything else is contact with him now and that’s really what we’re asking for and of course to bring him home. We emailed, we chatted, used social media to speak to him very frequently while he was in Syria so when we stopped hearing from him we became very concerned.
Q: Where did he enter Syria?
Debra: From Turkey
Q: So why are you here?
Debra: We are appealing to everyone and anyone for information about Austin and how we can bring him home.
Q: Who have you reached out to in Syrian government and what has been their response.
Marc: We have been in touch directly and indirectly with people in the Syrian government. They have indicated to us they don’t know where Austin is and we are reaching out to everyone that we can get in touch with to try to get their help in determining where Austin is and what we need to do bring him home.
Debra: Someone knows where our son is and we are beseeching that person to reach out to us and allow us to speak with him.
Q: Did you contact Turkish and Lebanese authorities?
Marc: We have a number of friends who are helping us and we have reached out to many of those authorities and will continue to do so and that is one reason why we are here, to reach out to anyone who can give us information.
Q: The Syrian authorities deny they have him, have you had any contact with any armed gang who are asking for money or any indication the Syrians are looking for him?
Debra: We really have no idea who is holding our son and that is our main purpose, to try to make contact with our son, to try to make contact and bring him home. We have no idea who is holding him.
Marc: We are contacting as best we can every group, every organization to try to get an answer to those questions.
Q: Has anyone told you they are looking for him whether political religious leaders etc?
Debra: We are profoundly grateful and humbled and amazed by the outpouring of assistance and support that we have received. There are many people who are working and looking and of course all over the world there are people praying with me.
Marc: That is correct. He has been in Syria since he entered in May and right now we have no idea exactly where he is or who he is with, and again our focus is to try to reach out and hope someone can contact us with information about what we need to do. We would like to make it clear that we will do whatever we can do to safely bring him home.
Q: Does this include paying ransom?
Marc: We have no idea what will be required and we would like to know from whoever is holding him what it is we need to do.
Debra: We believe he was in Daraya when he disappeared, and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary, whatever appears to be most beneficial in order to return our son.
Q: Did the video give you any clues?
Marc: No. We are hoping for some contact that will let us know who has him and what we need to do.
Q: Is the US Embassy or US officials involved?
Debra: We’ve had appropriate and amazing support in our search for our son and our decision to come to this area was driven by the fact that we want to expand our efforts and put ourselves in the position of being available for contacts.
Q: Has the free Syrian army contacted you? Are you staying here? Will you go to Syria?
Marc: We have not been contacted by anyone. We are here this week and if it would be productive for us to come back again, or go anywhere else for that matter; we’re willing to do that.
Q: What can journalists do?
Marc: The response from other journalists here in the region and honestly around the world has been humbling. It’s an amazing group of people. We have such an appreciation for their support and care. We would ask any journalist, by the nature of their work they speak to many people…so we would ask that they ask for information about Austin and if they receive any information please contact us.
Q: Do you think after you get your son back you will detach yourself from Syria?
Debra: Sometimes I feel that maybe I have a Middle Eastern heart so I think that my admiration for the culture and my love for the people and my enjoyment of the food is going to be a lifelong attachment.
Marc: I would say it’s impossible for an experience like this not to stay with you. We want no one to experience the kind of pain and longing and uncertainty that we and others are experiencing.
Before you leave…
Let me ask whoever is holding Austin, please treat him well, keep him safe, and return him to us as soon as you can.
Thank you.
November 09, 2012
SKeyes Statements | Lebanon
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| Kidnapped Journalist Austin Tice’s Parents to Hold a Press Conference in Beirut November 9, 2012 Source: Beirut – SKeyes |
Marc and Debra Tice, American freelance journalist Austin Tice’s parents, who was kidnapped in Syria on August 12, 2012, will hold a press conference on Monday, November 12, 2012, at 11 am at the Press Club in Furn el Chebbak, to talk about their son’s disappearance and urge relevant parties to release him.
On August 12, Austin Tice went missing in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, after weeks of covering the fighting between the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian government forces. On September 26, a video showing Tice blindfolded and surrounded by a group of armed men wearing the traditional Afghan clothes was released on YouTube. The kidnappers’ identity as well as Tice’s location could not be determined and his fate remains unknown. On October 8, Tice’s parents called on the Syrian government to help release their son.
Tice works as a freelance correspondent for The Washington Post and other news agencies such as McClatchy, CBC News, Al-Jazeera English and Agence France-Press among others.
The SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom invites all audiovisual, print and electronic media, whether Lebanese, Arab or international, to cover the press conference on Monday, in order to contribute to Tice’s release and that of all Syrian and foreign journalists detained by the Syrian regime or the armed opposition.
For more information, please contact Ayman Mhanna, SKeyes Center Executive Director, by e-mail (amhanna@skeyesmedia.org) or by phone (+9611397331). You can also contact Philip Elwood, the media advisor for the Tice family, by e-mail (pelwood@levick.com) or by phone (+12025072229).
October 05, 2012
http://arabic.rt.com/news_all_news/news/596233/