German reporter Eva Maria Michelmann, arrested last January in the city of Raqqa, in northeastern Syria, during a military operation, landed in Germany this Friday after being released by Syrian authorities.
Her brother, Antonius Michelmann, confirmed to the German news agency DPA that the journalist has been released and is in as good a condition as possible, after receiving her upon her arrival on German territory from Jordan.
Yazidi journalist Duzen Tekkal also applauded the news on her social media, although she expressed concern for the situation of Ahmed Polad, a Kurdish reporter with Turkish nationality detained along with Michelmann on January 18 in the same Syrian town and who remains imprisoned.
"We thank everyone who has supported Eva Maria Michelmann's cause, but we remain concerned about Ahmed Polad's whereabouts. The Syrian provisional government commits war crimes by imprisoning journalists for months without any legal basis and by treating civilians as prisoners of war," she denounced.
She also recalled that "for a time, it was not even known if they were still alive" and that only the "enormous pressure" exerted by relatives and supportive individuals allowed the case to come to light. In this context, she indicated that it was in April that it became known that "the 37-year-old journalist, originally from Cologne, was being held in a prison in Aleppo."
The so-called Syrian transitional government did not make the detention of both reporters public until May. According to the authorities' version, Michelmann was arrested during the search of a property linked to a group associated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). After barricading themselves in the building, all persons present were arrested, and during the operation, it was found that two of them were foreigners.
The Syrian Ministry of Information pointed out at the time that the reporter initially claimed to be a Spanish citizen and to work for an entity associated with the United Nations, which, when consulted by the authorities, denied having any staff members missing in that area.
In the course of the investigation it was established that it was a German journalist who could not provide documentation accrediting her professional work. The Ministry also stated that both Michelmann and her companion tried to escape, something that, according to their version, was recorded by surveillance cameras.