Thread by @washingtonpost

From @PostOpinions: More Americans are being held hostage by foreign governments than by terrorists and other groups.

The rise in wrongful detainments to extract concessions, policy changes or prisoner exchanges from the U.S. is dramatic: wapo.st/3BYnHik

@PostOpinions Roger Carstens is the current hostage envoy and one of the few holdovers from the Trump administration.

He says countries that regularly detain Westerners for leverage — such as Iran — might be incentivizing others to follow their lead. wapo.st/3BYnHik

As governments such as Rwanda’s imprison U.S. nationals like Paul Rusesabagina, depicted in “Hotel Rwanda,” the U.S. and other countries run the risk of accepting state hostage-taking as a problem without a solution. wapo.st/3BYnHik

U.S. national Aziza al-Yousef and her son Salah al-Haidar, an American journalist, are barred from leaving Saudi Arabia.

Al-Haidar’s young son is growing up in the United States without them. wapo.st/3BYnHik

Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed of Texas is serving nine years in a Russian labor camp for allegedly assaulting a police officer.

The U.S. is struggling to find the right leverage to free Reed and two other Americans jailed in Russia. wapo.st/3BYnHik

The U.S. passed a law in 2020 to help free U.S. hostages being unjustly detained by foreign governments as political pawns.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has freed just three. wapo.st/3BYnHik