Overview
- Germany’s Foreign Office said Tuesday it now has direct access to Eva Maria Michelmann and will provide consular care through its embassies in Beirut and Damascus.
- The ministry said it is working intensively through multiple channels and in contact with high-level counterparts, while declining to share further details for privacy reasons.
- Following Monday’s open letter signed by 160 supporters, Michelmann’s family urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen to make her release a top priority.
- Her lawyers say she was abducted on January 18 with Kurdish-Turkish journalist Ahmet Polad and is being held in isolating, inhumane conditions they argue amount to torture, calling for her immediate release.
- Michelmann’s mother criticized the government response as only “nice words,” and her brother said she endured hours-long interrogations and that the case has not been raised at the highest level.