Diane Foley, Founder and President of the James W Foley Legacy Foundation | Pod Hostage Diplomacy

POD HOSTAGE DIPLOMACY

Diane Foley is the mother of five children, including American freelance conflict journalist, James W Foley. Jim was kidnapped in Syria on 22 November 2012 and he was murdered on 19 August 2014. Diane founded the James W Foley Legacy Foundation (JWFLF) in September 2014 less than a month after his public execution to ensure Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained overseas as well as their families are made a priority by the US government and given all the support they need. Diane is currently the President of the Foundation.

This week, we have the honour of speaking to Diane Foley herself. She talks about her son, James and the JWFLF. We discuss the different types of hostage-taking, the difference between ‘hostage’ and ‘wrongful detainee’ classifications, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs office, American hostage Robert Levinson, the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, support for the families, ensuring there is a punishment for hostage-taking e.g. sanctions, US government stance on not-negotiating with hostage-takers, the case for negotiating as well as the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations launched by Canada.

We also discuss what businesses with operations and employees around the world, academic institutions, journalists, news organisations as well as the public can all do to help.
If you prefer, you can watch the video version of this interview on YouTube.
For more information on Diane Foley and the James W Foley Legacy Foundation, please check out the following:

• James W Foley Legacy Foundation website
• James W Foley Legacy Foundation Twitter account

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1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Who is Diane Foley? (00:00:48)

3. Jim Foley (00:02:29)

4. Why Diane founded the James W Foley Legacy Foundation (JWFLF) (00:03:47)

5. What does the JWFLF do? (00:04:58)

6. Different types of hostage-taking (00:09:22)

7. Should the ‘hostage’ and ‘wrongful detainee’ classifications change? (00:13:10)

8. US government stance on not-negotiating with hostage-takers (00:16:04)

9. Punishment for hostage-taking (00:26:51)

10. Robert Levinson and the Levinson Act (00:31:01)

11. Canadian Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention (00:39:48)

12. What can businesses that operate globally do? (00:42:38)

13. What should academic institutions do? (00:44:44)

14. What can journalists and the news media do? (00:47:55)

15. What can the public do to help? (00:50:59)

16. Keeping up to date with the JWFLF (00:53:13)

17. Moral courage (00:55:43)