“The United States government must redouble its efforts at home and with partners abroad to prevent these practices and secure the release of those held hostage or illegally held,” he said. The executive order, which families were briefed on on a call with administration officials Monday, was warmly welcomed by some families as a key tool to bring their loved ones home. But others expressed huge disappointment in his release, telling CNN that even as the White House touts the new order, it has yet to address their biggest concerns and demands, namely a meeting with Biden. “I can’t speak to the President’s specific program, but I can speak to his commitment to these issues, to the priority he places on the return of Americans who are being held hostage abroad, who are being held illegally abroad,” said a senior U.S. official. government when asked by CNN. on a call with reporters whether Biden will meet with the families who will be in the nation’s capital this week. The executive order directs the administration to “identify and recommend options and strategies to the President … to secure the recovery of hostages or the return of wrongfully detained United States citizens” and to “coordinate the development and implementation of policies, strategies, and procedures for the recovery of hostages or the return of wrongfully detained United States citizens.” Allows the administration to impose sanctions and visa bans on those involved in hostage-taking and illegal detention. It is intended to increase transparency between the administration and family members of hostages and illegal detainees through enhanced information sharing, including intelligence information. In addition to the executive order, the administration announced it will use a new indicator in the State Department’s travel advisories for individual countries to highlight that a US citizen is at risk of being taken hostage or illegally detained if they travel there. Myanmar (aka Burma), China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela will all receive this new ‘D’ risk rating, a second senior government official said.
“Our goal is to bring people home”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Tuesday’s actions as evidence of the US administration’s commitment to the safety of US citizens abroad, saying in a statement, “we will continue to be relentless in our efforts to reunite Americans who are being held hostage or illegally detained with their loved ones”. The first senior administration official said no new sanctions would be immediately imposed under the executive order’s sanctions authority. “Our goal is to bring people home, so we use the sanction authority with the primary goal of helping free our loved ones,” said a third senior executive. “Now the use of sanctions may not always help secure someone’s release, so we will be judicious and strategic in our use of this power.” Tuesday’s executive order builds on procedures for dealing with hostage cases established during the Obama administration. It also draws heavily from an existing law — the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act — which defined the criteria for who is wrongfully detained, expanded tools to help free those prisoners and hostages of USA, sanctions were authorized and intended to promote increased engagement with families. This law is named in honor of Robert Levinson, an American prisoner in Iran for decades who is believed to have died there. The third senior administration official said there had been ongoing meetings to draft the executive order since the law was passed in December 2020 “and the idea was that we had to get it right, this is not something we want to bring back in any way . , The figure.” “We wanted to have a tool that was going to be useful and that took a lot of time to try to make sure that everyone involved had a chance to weigh in so that we could come up with something that was going to be useful, powerful and achieve the The end states that we hoped to succeed. So it took some time, but if you want to do it right, sometimes you have to take time and I think that’s what’s happening here,” the official said.
‘Very welcome’
Elizabeth Whelan, whose brother Paul Whelan has been detained in Russia since 2018, called the executive order “an important move and extremely welcome” and one she had been waiting for since the passage of the Robert Levinson Act. “This EO gives the US leverage we wouldn’t otherwise have against illegal detention across the board and sets an example for other countries to do the same,” he said. “Ultimately, it will take a multi-pronged response to truly crack down on the evil practice of using ordinary citizens as political pawns, and I hope our administration will take full advantage of this EO to help bring Americans home in the meantime,” he said. Whelan on CNN, noting that he appreciated getting a preview of the news during the call with the families on Monday. Other family members of Americans illegally detained abroad told CNN they saw the executive order as a positive step forward, but said it was unclear what impact it would have on their loved ones’ cases. Veronica Vadell Weggeman, whose father Tomeu Vadell has been imprisoned in Venezuela since 2017, also said she appreciated that the newsletter was issued, rather than being surprised by it.
“By no means an answer to what we need”
However, other family members who spoke to CNN said they were very unhappy with Monday’s call and felt misled about the content of the call. They were briefed on Sunday in an email that did not detail the content, leading to speculation that there will be substantive updates or that Biden may participate. They were unable, they said, to voice questions or concerns during the call, which a family member described as “isolating.” Others said that if they had known in advance that the call would discuss the executive order, they would not have called because that call “was in no way a response to what we need and what we have repeatedly asked for.” It was “bad delivery for the wrong message,” said one of the family members, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the call off the record. The officials, according to family members briefed on Monday, did not explain why the White House released the order on Tuesday. Some family members told CNN they believe the timing of the administration’s order is meant to distract from the negative attention and upcoming events held by the inmates’ families in Washington, D.C., including the unveiling of a new commissioned mural from the “Bring Our Families Home Campaign.” In a statement, campaign spokesman Jonathan Franks described the call as “an effort to pre-empt press attention from the many hostage families who are in DC this week to unveil their mural.” CNN’s Kylie Atwood and Donald Judd contributed to this report.
