United States | The prisoner dilemma

What to do about an uptick in Americans unjustly held abroad

Are carrots or sticks the right way to bring them home?

Brittney Griner leaves the courtroom after the court's verdict in Russia, on August 4, 2022.
Griner, from Russia with shoveImage: Getty Images
|Washington, DC

“My husband Ryan has been wrongfully detained by the Taliban in deplorable and inhumane conditions for 461 days,” Anna Corbett told a congressional committee in November. “His crime: being a US citizen in Afghanistan.” For years Mr Corbett had run a microfinance and consulting firm to help Afghan businesses, but his family fled the country amid the withdrawal of Western forces in 2021. He hoped his work could continue under Taliban rule, but authorities detained him during a visit in August 2022.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The prisoner dilemma”

From the December 2nd 2023 edition

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