We take you live now to a discussion . Progress object press freedom and the circumstances surrounding u. S. Journalist austin tice and Evan Gershkovich who were both apprehended while reporting abroad. Live coverage here on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] its a little past 9 00 so if everyone begins to take their seat, we can begin in just a minute. [inaudible conversations] thank you all so much and welcome to the National Press club. Im emily wilkins, the 117th president of the National Press club and for cnbc. Thank you for joining us on this incredibly important topic. The first World Press Freedom day took place not the first one, but the first one in the u. S. Took place in the National Press club in 2011 so were grateful for those of you who joined us both in person and online today. On one hand its an exciting time all over the world giving important and moving speeches. Some in santiago, chile and all over the world. Well get the latest information on the three u. S. Journalists who are wrongfully being held overseas, you know their names. Austin tice, who works for the Washington Post has been held for nearly 12 years now in syria. Evan gershkovich, a wall street journal reporter taken in russia one year and two months ago and alsu kurmasheva, editor at Radio Free Europe, who has been held in russia for more than six months. Each of the journalists have a unique story and we want you to understand them not just as journalists wrongfully detained, but people who need to get back to their families and to their lives. Weve brought an important advocate to visit with each of us today and we look forward to an update on their current status and what might be coming next. While todays event is about wrongly detained reporters i would be remiss if we dont look at the extraordinary point and journalists are killed at an alarming rate, this is particularly true in the israelhamas war. Since october 7th, nearly 100 journalists have been killed in this war and thats more than all of the journalists who were killed in the calendar year 2023. Today we call for all parties to immediately stop the killing and targeting of journalists. We call on the u. S. Government to use its significant influence to ensure the safety of reporters. In our support of journalism, we do not take sides, but we cannot ignore the facts, the vast majority of journalists who have died are palestinians and we know that some of them have been targeted by israeli forces. And its not just killings, journalists are being wounded, theyre being threatened. Their families are being threatened. This is unacceptable and this must stop now. Journalists also need to be granted access to report firsthand on what is happening on the ground and documenting what is happening in this war. Organizations like aljazeera are an important source of information and need to be able to continue to report during this important time. Its israeli reporters have also been killed by hamas and we condemn these, notably a photographer just hours before his death was bravely documenting that horrific october 7th attack. As we face a possible final assault in gaza, there are only a few journalists remaining on the ground who can document whats happening and we ask for everyone, that great care be taken to make sure that they are safe and that theyre able to do their incredibly important work. Thank you so much and with that, were going to be our focus back to the detained journalists in the u. S. And why theyve gathered here today and start by welcoming to the stage, debra tice, austin tices mom. Austin has been detained in syria since 2012 and debra, youve been tirelessly leading the fight to bring him home. Your passion, your persistence, your determination has been incredibly inspiring to me and i know many who know you as well. And so, i welcome you to the stage to make a couple of remarks and look forward to a q a with you. Everyone, debra tice. [applause] so, first of all, of course, i want to thank you all for being here and i want to thank everyone thats also joining us virtually. Its been 11 years, eight months and one week, three days, since austin was detained in syria. We are not giving up on our efforts to bring him home. I know that many people feel thats a terribly long time, but its not unusual in syria for people to be detained in silence for a very long time. So, thank you again, thank you so much, emily, for taking this time this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] that youve taken the time to come and chat with us a bit about austin. The last time i saw you was a couple of days ago right before the white house Correspondents Dinner and we were talking how you got a very, very, very brief opportunity to meet with President Biden. Can you tell us a little bit. What did you tell him . What did he tell you . I was really fortunate to be able to have just a few minutes with the president and, also dr. Biden was with him, which was lovely to meet her for the first time. The most Important Message i had for the president is that in spite of the fact that he gave very distinct directives to the National Security council on may 2nd of 2022, and he told them to get a meeting, to listen to the syrians to find out what they wanted and to work with them. There was no action taken on that by the National Security council until the following february of 2023. And even those engagements have been less than sincere and i wanted the president to know that his directive has somewhat been ignored. That was the most Important Message that i had for him. And i hope that that will bring a change in the behavior of the National Security council. I mean, are you im curious because youve had several meetings with President Biden and spoke with a lot of officials in the u. S. Government. Are you satisfied with the responses at this point . How do you kind of feel about what youve been told and how the working relationship has been . The working relationship has been good. Theyre very open to engaging with me, which i appreciate, but my what i really want is for them to engage with the syrians. I can stay home and keep being the mom, keep being the homemaker, and they can go and engage with the Syrian Government rather than engaging with me. That would be the thing that i really would rather have happen. And i also wanted to ask about, because i think a lot of times when people first hear about austin tice, and you may have as well, they ask how long hes been detained for, and you say more than 11 years at this point. Theres a question that comes up a lot and folks say how do you know that we can still bring him home. How do you respond to those folks . Because i think its something that often comes up around austin and something that you have a really powerful answer to. Right. Usually when im asked that question i have to say, yes, i have no doubt, theres i get information about austin. I cant share it with you. I cant share my source with you. But i can tell you without a doubt, austin is exceedingly eager to walk free and i hope we can see that happen before he has to mark that day, however hes marking his time. I just hope he doesnt have to mark the day that he has been detained for 12 years. I hope we can get this done before august. I know, the National Press club and many of our partners out there are going to be doing everything we can with you completely 100 in making sure that we can get austin home. Can you just provide a bit of an update right now on what the latest is, with austins case, with syria, just really where things stand . Okay. You can see my notes are a wreck, but i have an answer to that question and i want to share it with you. Let me see if i can find it here. Take your time. So the thing that is the thing thats most important right now, to me, is were trying to find there was a meeting in damascus in 2020 with the National Security part of the National Security council, went and had a meeting with the syrians in damascus. And somewhere there is a report about that meeting. We have never received that report and we found out about it from an article by sonna smith and the Texas Monthly magazine and they were conscientious making sure that it was accurate. So we are asking now for our proof of that because part of this part of that meeting was that if certain conditions were met, there could be a proof of life offered. This was september of 2020. And i really think that if you could see that proof, it would really move the needle for austin. It would move the needle and it would make you more engaged. It would make the government more engaged. God willing, it would make the state department more engaged and more committed to bringing austin home, rather than throwing up their hands and saying, well, my goodness, its been almost 12 years. So that is a hugely important thing that we found out through the Texas Monthly writing. And had no idea, it was quite as far it was. And surprising given how many folks youve spoken in the government and contacts you have, and how active youve been coming up to d. C. And making sure that austin is being kept front of mind and that the case on him is progressing at this point. I know we also recently had Bashar Alassad saying there were discussions with the u. S. And seems like austin might be a part of that as well. I wanted to see if you had any particular thoughts on that or any discussions around that that you might be able to share. I know that some stuff is confidential, of course. There have been engagements, but theyve been more of performances, to say that theyve had engagements, rather than genuine, sincere engagement with the three steps that requires. Someone right now during this meeting is capturing your dog and you are going to have to release your dog. Youre going to have three things you need to do. Youre going to need to engage. Youre going to need to have dialog, and youre going to have to make a concession to get your dog back. And its exactly the same with austin in syria. There is going to have to be sincere engagement. Theres going to have to be dialog and, yes, at the very end, there is going to have to be concession. That is how hostage situations are remedied. And austin is waiting and our government as weve seen for the last seven months, is exceedingly capable of taking those three steps, should they desire. When you talk about those steps, you talk about engagement. I think theres one interesting piece of legislation, it didnt get a lot of attention, it wasnt one of the big bills that everyone fought over. The antinormalization act of 2023 already passed the house and its now gone over to the senate. Debra, can you talk a little about this bill and what its passage could mean for austin . Okay, yes, yes, i can. I was in a round table before the House Foreign Affairs committee this week talking specifically about this bill and how it affects austin. And this is the thing is, this bill is a really hateful bill. It even has a hateful title that talks about Something Like against the assad regime in syria or something, a title like that. And what it calls for is no engagement by the United States government, no engagement by businesses doing business in america, and no engagement by our allies. That is entirely ridiculous. And the impact on austin by his government would be a life sentence, if we cannot engage, we cannot bring austin home. And so, i want to talk about who is behind this bill and how did this bill get approved on the floor with suspended rules 389 representatives signed onto this bill. Those would have been asked to talk about what the bill is and what its about, dont know. They cant tell me what they signed for. They just knew, here is this bill, im going to see my constituents in two days, i want to get a long list of bills completed. Thats how that happens. So the real power behind the bill is the u. S. Based Syrian Opposition lobby. This lobby is trying to keep alive a civil war that is 13 years old and is over. I can tell you that the United States had a war between the states that lasted five years. There are people in the United States right now that would revisit that conflict. But i think we all agree that conflict is over and the Syrian Arab League agrees that the war in syria is over. There are embassies, especially the uae, has opened their embassy in damascus. It is peopled with an ambassador thats been accepted by bashar assad. It is over, so, why are these people continuing to push the importance of this conflict . These are people in our country. This bill is a huge win for that lobbying, but a horrid loss for the Syrian People living in tents. Living in tents in syria, living in tents in lebanon. Living in tents in jordan. This is not a bill friendly to these people that need to have their lives rebuilt. The Syrian Opposition was funded originally by saudi arabia, qatar and the uae. They have stopped funding that of opposition long ago. And that will tell you a lot. I challenge you, as investigative reporters, to look into who in america is now funding the Syrian Opposition . They are very active on capitol hill, i can tell you, to get 389 representatives to sign this bill without even reading it. The United States government needs to wake up. The state department, which is a vigorous defender of this Syrian Opposition group, needs to wake up. Our Congress Needs to wake up. The conflict is over, the time has come for rebuilding. Thats a very, very strong words, debra and important light is being shed and i Cover Congress and they are a chunk of bills that go quickly throughout the week and its notable, all of your interactions with lawmakers, they havent really been able to tell you what the bill does and seems like it realizes there is some implications for their vote for it and obviously, i know theres work being done to have the Education Campaign in the senate. I also just wanted to ask, what do you see right now as the biggest obstacles to austins case . That, that is the biggest obstacles to austins case, is this insistence that we cannot engage with syria and then, our government kind of being in the middle of that, so they have to perform engaging because the president gave them that directive, but theyre walking a tightrope, i guess. And that is the problem. Our government needs to have a determination and a commitment to austin that we have seen with other hostages for the last seven months. If austin had that kind of commitment, that kind of dedication, he would have been home longing ago. And when you talk to lawmakers earlier this week at the panel. What was their response . It was mixed. It was mixed. Some of the people thought that i was very much out line to speak so strongly against that bill. And my congressman, congressman al green, lucky for austin, was very supportive that this is, you know, weve got hr3202 in the house. Weve got 2254 at the u. N. But these are all inhuman, inhumane for the Syrian People. These are not this is not the road that we want to be on. We need to get on the right track. Debra, i want to kind of pivot the conversation a little bit just because we talk about austin so much in our desire to have him come home and free him, how that can happen. Can we just spend a minute speaking just about austin, who he is as a person, what is he like . Just kind of give us a sense of this individual who i feel we spent so much talking about the strategy around him and havent spent a minute talking about him and i just want to give you a minute to do that. Its more than a minute. Go for it. This is my first born son and the one that made me a mom and the choices that he has made in his life have just made this mom over the moon. He has always been strongwilled, very strongwilled. When he puts his mind to something thats the way were going. And you know, hes an eagle scout, hes a decorated captain in the United States marine corps. He gave he decided to serve his country after 9 11. He felt like that he was called to that. It wasnt something he had been thinking of prior to that. He is the best big brother you could ever want. All the tropes about big brothers, he fills them. He loves being the oldest. We have seven, and his youngest sister still misses him horribly. He was her mentor. She now has a masters degree. Shes served in the peace corps. But every decision that she made, she made it at the last minute because she kept hoping and hoping that her brother would come home and be able to help him make those decisions. He only knows one of his nieces. She was three when he was detained. Every friday they would have a zoom together and they would sing the song friday, friday, got to get down on friday no matter where austin was. He was sheltering in a stairwell in syria and he still kept his friday obligation to his 3yearold niece. Hes just an amazing, loving person, with a huge, huge personality for sure. Debra, thank you so much for sharing that with us, for being being here today and for all of your advocacy and in journalism we often talk about speaking truth to power and youve done that many, many times over again and we at the press club are behind you and fully support you and we cannot wait to be able to welcome austin to the press club one day very soon. Thank you, debra. Thank you, emily. You guys are amazing. [applause]. All right, if you just want to i can double fist for a second here. Next, we will be calling to the stage the president