American Geologist Serving Life Sentence in Qatar – Read His Stories – Support His Family
    leadimage Welcome to the John W Downs Website

    I am Margaret Downs, 20 year old daughter of the American, John Downs, currently imprisoned in the country of Qatar on charges of espionage. I’m writing to you on behalf of my family and myself, asking for a moment of your time to try to explain the impact that my father’s absence has had on our family and those around us. I appreciate you taking the time to just read what I have to say and I can’t thank you enough for any action you might take after learning of our situation.

    Before someone in your family is taken away from you so abruptly, you really can’t comprehend how much they hold your world together. Without that single person in your family all the rest falls miserably apart. In the Downs family, which consisted of both my parents, my two brothers and I, my father was the one who effortlessly held us all together through everything. . . My father’s strength and intelligence has always amazed me, but through this hardship there’s been a shift in his priorities, and when I visit him these days my father’s love for me and my brothers astounds me.

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    About the Family

    Thomas, 19, Margaret, 20, and Nicholas, 22 - John's children (left) and Margaret, now a student at University of Arkansas, with John's sister, Julie Van Voy, on a trip to Washington, D.C.

    See more family photos of John and the children

The Story of John W. Downs

Letter to Gulf Times Editor

---------------------here's an apology sent last year to Gulf Times, use it as you wish Dear Editor: I've been mentioned in your paper ...

Biography of John Wesley Downs

BIOGRAPHY john August 26, 2005, John Wesley Downs went on an errand and failed to return home. “On Friday, August ...

How I got into this mess

by John W. Downs My 25 years in business have taught me to try not to make the boss angry. If ...

Press / Media

Kin’s goal: Bring man home from Qatar jail

The following appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette-Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/29/2010
By Alex Daniels
WASHINGTON, D.C. March 29 (Democrat-Gazette)
Julie Downs Van Woy cq ( on right) of Eureka Springs and Margaret Downs, a sophomore at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville protested outside the Qatar Embassy in Washington, D.C. the week of March 21. This picture [...]

Letters of Support

Dear President Obama by Margaret

Dear President Obama,
I am writing to you on behalf of my family and father, John Downs, and hoping you will be willing to help bring him home. I don’t doubt you receive countless letters from people trying to explain to you how dearly they need your help. In that sense this letter may [...]

Short Stories by John Downs

The Long Rains

It was raining in Chogoria, of course, since it was the Long Rains, the longer of two rainy seasons in central Kenya. The foliage glowed and preened, like a pretty woman who’s just received a compliment. Tom looked up from his typing in the tiny internet café to glance out the window, the slanting rays of the tropical afternoon reflecting off lush, glossy leaves of thorn trees, the sounds of noisy birds enjoying a bath. Toby with his tractor chugged by outside on the muddy road. Joel, the café owner, was frying Kenyan donuts, mundazis, in the small kitchen. Cooked and served hot, they were like New Orleans beignets.