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Majd Kamalmaz, an American psychologist (now 61) whose home is in Dallas, has disappeared in Damascus (capitale of) Syria nearly two years ago. His family in the United States doesn’t know where he is, who is holding him, whether he has the diabetes medication he needs or even whether he is still alive. They have not spoken to him since he told them he was making a quick trip to Damascus from Lebanon to visit relatives in February 2017 (to visit his wife’s mother) He had contacted the Syrian government in advance to make sure he was not wanted or blacklisted in Syria for any reason (his family said) and the government’s response was that he was cleared to visit. He had been in Damascus for less than a day when he was stopped at a government checkpoint, according to the taxi driver who had been driving him around the Syrian capital. That was the last time anyone has heard from him. Mr. Kamalmaz’s family chose at first not to speak publicly about his disappearance as they tried to push for his release. But the F.B.I. and the State Department, which had advised them to keep the case quiet, have made little progress in finding him, and Mr. Kamalmaz’s family now wants to promote the case, hoping to catch President Trump’s ear and encourage him to put the weight of his office behind efforts to free Mr. Kamalmaz. Mr. Trump has made freeing Americans held overseas a personal priority, and his administration has helped secure the release of a several prisoners and hostages (ex : ncluding Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker held in Cairo) But negotiating the freedom of Mr. Kamalmaz poses significant challenges bc the US cut diplomatic relations with Syria after the outbreak of the war (15 mars 2011, it was in response to the ongoing violence and human rights abuses taking place in Syria). (Mr. Kamalmaz’s case was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.) Beside him, a small number of other Americans are being held in Syria like Austin Tice (a freelance journalist detained at a checkpoint outside Damascus in 2012, whose parents have also pleaded for Mr. Trump’s intervention.) Why the Syrian government would have wanted to detain Mr. Kamalmaz is unknown to his family. he was stopped at a checkpoint run by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who has gradually consolidated control over his country, gutted by more than seven years of civil war. He was born in Syria but immigrated to the United States when he was 6, in the early 1960s, after his father got a job with an aircraft manufacturer in Southern California. Mr. Kamalmaz, whose home is in Dallas, had grown up in the United States and considered himself American.

Soon after his disappearance, the Syrian government initially told the Czech (CHek) ambassador (Washington’s only semiofficial channel to the Syrian government in such matters is the Czech Republic’s ambassador in Damascus, who acts as a diplomatic gobetween.) Mr. Kamalmaz was being held by the government, which he told the family. Next they heard from friends and family in Damascus that he was being held in the

Syrian capital’s Mezzeh (mèzeu, iss a municipality in Damascus)) military base, a place where prisoners were known to face torture and execution. The Syrian government then told the Czech ambassador that it did not have Mr. Kamalmaz. Since then, there has been no further word from the government. Knowing nothing about his condition is the hardest part

Reason : be conscious that peace is not all around the world...