NPC Virtual Newsmaker: Former Hostages Discuss Diplomatic Changes Needed to Bring Americans Home

A panel of former hostages will discuss how the U.S. government can end the use of hostage-taking as a diplomatic tool at a National Press Club Headliners event Friday, Feb. 12 at 11 a.m.

The Biden Administration said earlier this month that recovering Americans held hostage or unlawfully detained in foreign countries is a top tenet in its diplomacy.

“In my call with families of loved ones held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad, I reaffirmed that their family members are a top priority in our diplomatic engagement,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter after speaking with the families on Feb. 2. “We will continue to use every tool and resource available under U.S. law to bring Americans home.”

At least 43 Americans are currently held hostage or unlawfully detailed in 11 countries, according to the Foley Foundation, which tracks publicly known hostage cases.

Panelists will be:

• Nizar Zakka, CEO of Hostage Aid Worldwide, a technology expert who was in Tehran, Iran to speak at a conference on the digital divide when he was kidnapped and taken hostage in 2015. He was released in 2019;
• Barry Rosen, the press attache for the U.S. Embassy in Iran when it was overtaken on Nov. 4, 1979 by militants who held Rosen and 51 other Americans captive in brutal conditions for 444 days, and
• Xiyue Wang, a graduate student at Princeton University who was on a research trip to Tehran in August 2016 when he was arrested by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, charged and convicted for espionage, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in December 2019 through a prison swap.