Austin Tice, a U.S. freelance journalist and former U.S. Marine, has been separated from his family and loved ones for a long time; 12 years to be exact. Tice was reporting on the Syrian civil war from outside the capital Damascus when he was abducted in August 2012.
The rebel-led collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime and the release of thousands of prisoners, including political prisoners, in Syria on Dec. 8 has renewed hopes of locating Tice and the tens of thousands of others who are missing.
Surprisingly, there is a connection between Tice — who was among the first U.S. journalists to make it into Syria after the outbreak of the civil war — and Taylor Swift: Tice is apparently a Swiftie. Now, the pop star could help bring one of her fans home.
Spent the day at an FSA pool party with music by @taylorswift13. They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever.
— Austin Tice (@Austin_Tice)
August 11, 2012
In Tice’s last tweet before his abduction on Aug. 11, 2012, which was also his 31st birthday, he mentioned Swift. Tice wrote that he’d spent that day listening to her music at a pool party with members of the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of rebel opposition groups, with which Tice was most likely embedded at the time. He even said it was his “best birthday ever.” A few days later, he disappeared.
Weeks later, a disturbing video emerged online showing Tice blindfolded and being led uphill by gun-clad captors wearing white robes. That 47-second clip, in which the journalist can be heard reciting an Arabic prayer and saying “Oh, Jesus,” was the last direct indication Tice was alive. That is until new information obtained by Reuters on Friday revealed that Tice escaped from his captors briefly in 2013 before being recaptured. Assad’s government repeatedly denied holding the journalist.
But since the fall of the Assad regime, the U.S. administration has intensified its search for Tice, the only missing American journalist that we know of. Both the State Department and the FBI are offering awards of $10 million and $1 million respectively for any information that leads to Tice.
The U.S. has been in direct talks about Tice with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant rebel faction that currently leads the interim Syrian government.
HTS has offered to “cooperate directly” with the U.S. administration to locate Tice. A spokesperson for the new Syrian interim government told NBC News on Dec. 12 that the country’s new leadership blames Assad for the anguish of Tice's family.
In a press briefing soon after Assad fled to Russia, President Joe Biden said that despite his administration not having “direct evidence” that Tice is alive, his administration is “committed to returning him” home. Biden also sent U.S. officials to the region to help with the search effort. Tice’s parents maintain that their son is still alive.
The British newspaper The Times reported Wednesday that Syrian journalist and activist Saher al-Ahmad, who was imprisoned by Assad’s regime, believed he was held in the same Damascus jail as Tice as recently as 2022. He said he saw the American journalist a few times, which aligns with an unconfirmed U.S. intelligence report from 2022 in which a senior Syrian opposition leader stated that Tice had been in a Damascus prison since July 2021, according to The Washington Post.
For the past 12 years, successive U.S. administrations have tried and failed to bring Tice back home. Meanwhile, Tice’s parents and press freedom advocates, including Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), have worked on numerous advocacy campaigns and initiatives to raise awareness about his case.
Swift could help with those efforts at this critical time. If she learns about Tice’s abduction and publicly sympathizes with the American journalist and his family members who desperately want his return, she could give a huge boost to his chances of being found or released.
The superstar could express solidarity either online or offline. Her star power (and legions of fans) could encourage the Biden administration to do even more in its last remaining weeks to end Tice’s ordeal. Tice deserves to be home with his family for the holidays, safe and sound.
Taylor Swift, please help us find your fan, American journalist Austin Tice.
stLouIST
