The mother of an American imprisoned in China for over 10 years and facing execution is calling on President Biden to take action during his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi to secure her son\u2019s release for a crime she and many others say he did not commit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018President Biden, you need to please say Mark\u2019s name and tell him [Xi] what do you want to let him go,\u2019 Katherine Swidan, the 73-year-old mother of Mark Swidan told Fox News Digital on Monday, the 11-year anniversary of the day her son was wrongfully arrested by Chinese authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We have the people, We have the military. We have the money. What\u2019s the problem?\u2019<\/p>\n
Mark Swidan was 38-years old when he went to China on business looking for flooring for construction work in November 2012. He was arrested after his driver and translator were allegedly found with drugs.<\/p>\n
A United Nations report determined that Swidan, who has no history of drugs, was not in possession of drugs on his person or in his hotel room, and records show he was not even in China at the time of the alleged offense.<\/p>\n
The U.N. report said that the 11 other people arrested with Swidan as part of the alleged trafficking ring were unable to identify him and that the conviction was based on his visiting a factory that had once been used to manufacture methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
Swidan\u2019s mother told Fox News Digital she has \u2018no confidence\u2019 that Biden and the State Department will be able to secure her son\u2019s release during Wednesday\u2019s visit and bases that lack of confidence on communications she has received from government officials who are \u2018sympathetic\u2019 but unable to give her any concrete answers on where things stand with her son.<\/p>\n
The State Department, in a press release earlier this year in response to China upholding Swidan\u2019s death sentence, referred to his situation as \u2018wrongfully detained\u2019 and said the Biden administration is \u2018personally focused\u2019 on securing his release.<\/p>\n
Swidan\u2019s mother told Fox News Digital that he has not had a medical exam in 9 years and has 4 abscessed molars, several fractures, a dislocated knee, hands that have been broken 5-7 times due to torture and that he has lost over 100 lbs in confinement. She added that the last time a U.S. official visited Swidan, last August, the official was \u2018horrified\u2019 at Swidan\u2019s physical condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Swidan said that the Biden administration has consistently told her they have a \u2018plan\u2019 to secure Mark\u2019s release but that they have been tight-lipped about what that plan entails.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t think you ever had a plan,\u2019 Swidan said. \u2018I don\u2019t think you\u2019ve talked to them about Mark. Everything I see in the news on every single station, everything I see points to you having a speech, having a good old time, praising China and saying congratulations on your historic whatever and that does not sit right with me. China only understands strength.\u2019<\/p>\n
Swidan\u2019s mother says she was told by a U.S. official on Friday that her son had been moved to a new facility, Dongguan Prison, the previous week which she says she should have been told earlier.<\/p>\n
\u2018I said how come nobody told me?\u2019 Swidan recounted to Fox News Digital. \u2018You can send me an email. It takes 2 minutes and I\u2019m up all night anyway, because it\u2019s daytime in China and I don\u2019t want to miss a phone call.\u2019<\/p>\n
GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Swidan\u2019s home state of Texas, told Fox News Digital that \u2018China\u2019s imprisonment of Mark Swidan is unjust and an outrage.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The Biden administration has everything they need to make his release a priority in their talks with the Chinese Communist Party,\u2019 Cruz said. \u2018Congress has spoken out repeatedly and unanimously to urge them to use the full range of American diplomacy to bring him home. Enough is enough. It must be a top priority.\u2019<\/p>\n
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, in a resolution earlier this year along with Cruz, wrote that the \u2018human rights abuses Mark has suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party are horrific and I will continue to push the Biden administration to expedite his case and secure his release.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Mark Swidan, a Texan, has been in a Chinese detention facility for over a decade for a crime he couldn\u2019t have committed\u2014he wasn\u2019t even in the country,\u2019 Texas GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,<\/strong> posted on X last week. \u2018When Chairman Xi flies to the US this month, the White House must demand Mark is on that plane with him.\u2019<\/p>\n A State Department spokesperson directed a request for comment on any conversation Biden may have with Xi to the White House but said that the department \u2018continually\u2019 raises Swidan\u2019s captivity during meetings with Chinese officials and that there is \u2018no greater priority\u2019 than Americans detained overseas.<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n Swidan\u2019s mother expressed frustration that Blinken seems to \u2018running from country to country handing out money like its water\u2019 while her son sits in prison sleeping on a concrete floor for over a decade.<\/p>\n \u2018Throw them [China] a billion and let him out, you know, because with hostage situations that\u2019s what they want,\u2019 Swidan said, adding that the Biden administration has had the \u2018gall\u2019 to tell her in the past that they don\u2019t know what China wants in exchange for her son.<\/p>\n Swidan says she worries every day that her son\u2019s deteriorating condition and inhumane living conditions will lead him to take his own life in prison before his release can be secured.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018<\/strong>I\u2019m not going to give up hope and even if something happens to him, God forbid, I\u2019m still going after these people,\u2019 Swidan told Fox News Digital. \u2018Everybody that dragged their feet and made excuses whether they\u2019re in China or in America. They are going to see the biggest global lawsuit they\u2019ve ever seen and I don\u2019t even want one penny out of it. I just want them to know what they did to this man.\u2019<\/p>\n Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco, California and the White House says the two leaders are expected to discuss the relationship between the United States and China, including the importance of maintaining \u2018open lines of communication.\u2019<\/p>\n\n The mother of an American imprisoned in China for over 10 years and facing execution is calling on President Biden to take action during his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi to secure her son\u2019s release for a crime she and many others say he did not commit.\u00a0 \u2018President Biden, you need to please say <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}