Thirteen years without Austin Tice: RSF calls on US, Syria to explain search efforts for missing journalist

Austin Ticewas taken prisoner in Syria on August 14, 2012 while covering the country's civil war for several media outlets. He has remained incommunicado since the day he was captured. The government of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad never acknowledged holding Tice, so the regime change in December 2024brought renewed hope that he could be found and freed.

Former President Joe Biden declaredin 2022 that the US government knows "with certainty that [Tice] has been held by the Syrian regime" and called on Damascus to cooperate on efforts to release him. Former Secretary of State Antony Blinkenmentioned the journalist at an RSF event for World Press Freedom Day 2023.

However, President Donald Trump said earlier this yearthat "Austin Tice hasn't been seen in many, many years."

Thirteen years after his capture, RSF continues to advocate that the US government make Tice's case a priority. RSF has worked closely with the journalist's parents, Marc and Debra Tice, who have fought relentlessly to bring their son home. RSF is actively seeking out information regarding Tice's whereabouts, as well as the fate and whereabouts of seven Syrian journalistswho disappeared during the reign of Bashar al-Assad.

Tice was to begin his final year at Georgetown Law School in the Fall of 2012, after reporting on the Syrian conflict that summer. His work has been published by McClatchy News, The Washington Post, Associated Press, and AFP, and broadcast on CBS, NPR,and BBC.