DUBAI: Media watchdogs have called on Syria’s new leaders to ensure the safety of all journalists in the country, and bring to justice those responsible for killing, imprisoning, and harassing media workers during Bashar Assad’s regime.

“While we wait for the missing to return and the imprisoned to be released, we call on the new authorities to hold the perpetrators to account for the crimes of killing, abducting, or jailing reporters,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ is also urging the new government to allow journalists and media workers access to information and locations without the fear or risk of being detained or questioned.

Syria is among the most dangerous countries for journalists ranking in 179th place out of 180 countries in the latest World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.

Since 2011, more than 181 journalists have been killed — 161 by regime forces and 17 by Russian airstrikes — in addition to multiple others tortured and imprisoned by the Syrian regime and its supporters, according to RSF data.

Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk, said: “We demand that Bashar Assad be prosecuted for his crimes. Justice, long overdue, must finally be served for all victims of his abuses.”

He added that RSF is also aware of crimes against journalists committed by the Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, which has taken control in Syria, and called on the Islamist group to “hold their responsible members accountable, and to release all journalists still detained in the country, including those they have taken hostage.”

Dagher added: “Syria’s future leaders, whoever they may be, must ensure the safety of journalists and allow a free press to flourish.”

CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which calculates the percentage of unsolved journalist murders in each country relative to its population, has seen Syria make the list for the last 11 years, including as the top offender in 2023.

Since the Assad regime’s collapse, HTS has been releasing prisoners, with RSF confirming the release of two journalists: Syria Media Monitor’s Hanin Gebran, who was detained in June 2024, and blogger Tal Al-Mallouhi, who was detained in 2009.

WASHINGTON: The American prisoner reportedly found in Az-Zyabeyeh district south of Damascus was not journalist Austin Tice, AlArabiya reported on Thursday.

There have been conflicting reports earlier on whether Tice has been found, with Syria TV citing sources the individual found in the Damascus countryside was not the missing journalist.

AlArabiya later reported that the individual was named Travis Timmerman, who illegally traveled into Syria from Lebanon seven months ago and has been held in captivity since.

A video posted on social media meanwhile showed Timmerman telling the interviewer that he went to Syria on a ‘religious pilgrimage.’

الأميركي الذي عثر عليه "ترافيس تيمرمان" للعربية: أتيت إلى سوريا في رحلة دينية منذ عدة أشهر#قناة_العربية#سوريا pic.twitter.com/kn7cKX6kEd

— العربية (@AlArabiya) December 12, 2024

“The American who was found in Syria is not Austin Tice. He told me his name is Travis. He refused to give a last name. He said he was a “pilgrim” and that he crossed into Syria by foot before he was detained. He was held in prison for seven months and said he was well treated,” journalist Matt Bradley posted on X.

“When I asked him about the religious beliefs that compelled him to cross the mountains from Lebanon into Syria, he told me he had “been reading the scripture a lot” lately but others interrupted before he could elaborate.”

The American who was found in Syria is not Austin Tice.
He told me his name is Travis. He refused to give a last name.
He said he was a “pilgrim” and that he crossed into Syria by foot before he was detained.
He was held in prison for seven months and said he was well treated.

— Matt Bradley (@MattMcBradley) December 12, 2024

President Joe Biden said Sunday that the US government believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive and that Washington is committed to bringing him home after Bashar Assad’s ouster from power in Damascus.

“We think we can get him back,” Biden told reporters at the White House, while acknowledging that “we have no direct evidence” of his status. “Assad should be held accountable.”

Biden said officials must still identify exactly where Tice is after his disappearance in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus.

“We’ve remained committed to returning him to his family,” he said.

Tice, who is from Houston and whose work had been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets.

A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. Syria has publicly denied that it was holding him.

The United States has no new evidence that Tice is alive, but continues to operate under the assumption he is alive, according to a US official. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US will continue to work to identify where he is and to try to bring him home.

His mother, Debra, said at a news conference Friday in Washington that the family had information from a “significant source,” whom she did not identify, establishing that her son was alive.

“He is being cared for and he is well — we do know that,” she said.

The Tice family met this past week with officials at the State Department and the White House.

“To everyone in Syria that hears this, please remind people that we’re waiting for Austin,” Debra Tice said in comments that hostage advocacy groups spread on social media Sunday. “We know that when he comes out, he’s going to be fairly dazed & he’s going to need lots of care & direction. Direct him to his family please!”