Hill, lawmakers take part in roundtable
Committee members discuss strategies for returning hostages to US soil
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., and colleagues in the House of Representatives recognize the United States government has unfinished business in bringing Americans wrongfully detained in foreign countries back home.
Hill, of Little Rock, and members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee participated Tuesday in a roundtable with family members of detained Americans, during which lawmakers discussed the national strategy in returning hostages and heard stories regarding current hostages and detainees.
“Having a loved one hostage abroad is unimaginable, and it’s an unimaginable, heartbreaking circumstance for these families and one that few Americans truly know,” Hill said.
The congressman has made addressing Americans wrongfully detained or held hostage overseas a priority of his congressional tenure. Hill and Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., serve as co-chairs of the Congressional Task Force on American Hostages and Americans Wrongfully Detained Abroad. The two lawmakers led the House effort to create Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day, designating March 9 as a day for recognizing Americans being unjustly held abroad.
“Every channel of the U.S. government should be working to bring these Americans home and disincentivize the wrongful detention of Americans in the future by state actors or non-state actors,” Hill said.
The roundtable provided family members of detainees an opportunity to express concerns about the condition of their loved ones.
Pavel Butorin, the husband of Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, noted his wife is being held in inhumane conditions without access to proper medical care or communication with her daughters.
Russian authorities charged Kurmasheva, an editor with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information on the Russian military. They later accused her of spreading “false information” about the Russian military’s presence in Ukraine.
“For more than half a year now, my wife and the mother of our two young daughters has been held on charges that make no sense to her or to us,” Butorin said. “Six months on, my children and I are struggling to understand why Alsu was captured and what the Russian government wants from our family.”
Maryam Kamalmaz’s father, Maryam Kamalmaz, traveled to Syria in February 2017 to visit family with the additional hope of establishing a clinic for people affected by the ongoing Syrian civil war. He has not been seen or heard since Syrian authorities stopped him at a checkpoint outside of Damascus.
“It’s seven years of not knowing. It’s way too long,” Maryam Kamalmaz said. “We need to come to a conclusion of the circumstances and the situation that he’s in.”
Hill said “every channel of the U.S. government” should have a role in bringing Americans wrongfully detained back to the United States and discouraging foreign governments and groups from taking American citizens hostage.
“No country or non-state actor should take an American with impunity. Period, full stop,” he added. “These incidences must be punished, and this should be a focal point of U.S. foreign policy. It should be at the top of every bilateral diplomatic meeting or negotiation with the countries at hand that Americans be released before we start that conversation.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States’ foreign policy concerning hostages should involve “projecting power,” in which the Texas Republican noted the United States must punish bad actors for human rights abuses.
The House in February passed legislation prohibiting federal agencies from recognizing or normalizing with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government. The measure, the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act,
would additionally require the State Department to collaborate with other agencies on a report detailing steps to counter other foreign governments’ efforts to normalize their relationships with the Assad regime.
Debra Tice’s son, journalist Austin Tice, went missing in August 2012 while reporting in Syria. During Tuesday’s roundtable, she cautioned Congress from passing the bill in its current form.
“How can disagreements be peacefully resolved if all engagement is forbidden?” she said.
“If the United States government is prohibited and prohibits any business or ally from engaging with the standing current Syrian Arab Republic government and its serving president Bashar al-Assad, the United States of America is effectively condemning Austin and any other Americans detained in Syrian to life in prison.”