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Government Cloud: Article

My Abducted Two-Year-Old American Guest Worker Daughter in Syria

Sofia remains in her abducted country of Syria under the immigration status of "Palestinian Immigrant Worker"
By Fuat Kircaali
Article Rating:
April 11, 2011 03:06 PM EDT
Reads:
 22,255

Since her abduction by her mother last summer, my two-year-old US citizen daughter, who is in ailing health, remains in her abducted country of Syria under the immigration status of "Palestinian Immigrant Worker."

Fox News: ▸ video ▸ story

Sofia needs to appear every three months before Syrian immigration authorities to renew her "guest worker" visa, stamped in her American passport.

Syria, one of the most oppressed regimes in the world together with North Korea and Iran, does not offer many human rights, freedom or democracy, nor does it recognize the International Hague Convention for Child Abduction.

Not being a Syrian citizen Sofia has no civil rights. For the past seven months she did not receive any medical care for her GDD - Global Development Delay condition with autism. Since she is an out-of-status American child, she is also not able to enroll in any accredited child care facilities in Syria.

State Department Update: April 7, 2011
The day after my last tweet regarding the lack of any new information about my abducted daughter Sofia since March 4, I received an updated letter on Thursday, April 7, 2011, from the State Department on Sofia's welfare in Syria.

Sofia was abducted by her mother from the United States to Syria last July, following her diagnosis of GDD with possible autism. She had 13 remaining medical appointments left at the time of her abduction, none of which she was able to keep.

Last week's welfare report prepared by our Embassy in Damascus, Syria, after their second welfare visit to the home in Syria where Sofia remains with her mother and grandmother, showed a bleaker outcome for my daughter than the previous report dated November 2010.

At two years and two months of age, Sofia still doesn't speak a single word, make or follow simple hand gestures, such as a simple "bye-bye."

As explained by her physicians, she also started showing autistic signs, such as not having any eye contact with her mom, grandmother and others around her.

▸ Fox News on-camera Interview
▸ Fox News Story on Sofia's Abduction to Syria
▸ US Leaves Its Youngest Citizen Behind Syria

The Embassy personnel who visited Sofia could not determine "whether Sofia's vocalization or facial expressions were within the normal range of affect for a child of her age."

Sofia does not respond to her name.

A copy of the "unclassified" State Department report is below.

Sofia needs intense urgent daily therapy, up to 4-5 hours per day, which was scheduled to start seven months ago in New Jersey, United States.

She has not received any medical attention for her condition since her abduction to Syria.

Diane Macedo of Fox News worked on Sofia's story for more than a month, studying documents, interviewing more than a dozen people, and fact-checking before publishing her news story on Monday and airing our interview.

Here is the link to the Fox News on-camera interview.

On Monday, she also published a detailed article on Sofia that was picked up by a dozen or so media outlets around the world during the week.

▸ Fox News Story on Sofia's Abduction to Syria

When Sofia returns safely home, she will pay her first visit to Diane at the Fox News headquarters in New York City.

▸ US Leaves Its Youngest Citizen Behind Syria

P.S. - Last Monday AP reported that "State Dept. issued travel warning on Syria" and on Monday Reuters filed a follow-up report that "US offers free flights out for employees in Syria."

As of today, and since July 2010, my abducted daughter Sofia Kircaali, a US citizen, remains in Syria and in harm's way.

On Friday, I watched videos on the Internet showing violence inside a mosque one block away from where Sofia currently lives with her mother and grandmother.

Twitter updates on Sofia @FuatKircaali

Copy:
Mr. Barack Obama, The President of the United States
Mrs. Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State
Mrs. Sharon Anderholm Wiener, Outgoing Consul General to Istanbul, Turkey
Mr. Charles F. (Chuck) Hunter, Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy in Damascus

Published April 11, 2011 – Reads 22,255
Copyright © 2011 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Fuat Kircaali

Fuat Kircaali is the founder and chairman of SYS-CON Media, CloudEXPO, Inc. and DXWorldEXPO, Inc.

Kircaali came to the United States from Zurich University, Switzerland in 1984 while studying for his PhD, to design computer systems for SH-2G submarine hunter helicopters for the U.S. Navy. He later worked at IBM's IS&CG Headquarters as a market research analyst under Mike Armstrong's leadership, an IBM executive who later ran IBM Europe and AT&T; and Fuat was the Director of Information Systems for UWCC, reporting to CEO Steve Silk (later Hebrew National CEO), one of the top marketing geniuses of the past two decades.

Kircaali founded SYS-CON Media in 1994, a privately held tech media company with sales exceeding $200 million. SYS-CON Media was listed three years in a row by Inc 500 and Deloitte and Touche among the fastest-growing private companies in America. Kircaali launched DXWorldEXPO LLC, a Lighthouse Point, FL-based "digital transformation" events company in March 2017.

Fuat completed Bogazici University (ranked among the top 100 universities in the world) Business Administration program in 1982 with a Bachelor's Degree in Istanbul, Turkey. He was one of 50 students accepted to the program out of over 1 million high school graduates.

http://twitter.com/fuatkircaali

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