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 ...

Letter from John to National Human Rights Committee in Qatar

NHRC Doha, Qatar Dear Sir, Here at Central Jail we often speak of your good work on behalf of prisoners. I'm an American ...

Biography of John Wesley Downs

John Wesley Downs Born September 29, 1955 in San Antonio, Texas, son of two WWII Military Veterans, John Wesley Downs grew ...

Press / Media

A Duke student’s quest to free his father from a Qatari prison

from Indyweek.com 18 MAR 2009 article by Lisa Sorg:
It was a steamy August evening when Nick Downs pulled up to his family’s concrete block home in Doha, Qatar, to find several black Land Cruisers and Range Rovers parked in front.
Nick entered the iron gate and strode through a brick and grass courtyard to [...]

Letters of Support

Dear Ambassador LeBaron

May 14, 2009
Embassy of the United States of America
22nd February Street
Al-Luqta district
Doha, Qatar
Dear Ambassador LeBaron,
There are probably better ways to approach our government in asking for help but our family is quite at the end of our patience and our concern for John Downs’ well-being is growing daily. We feel we have run out of [...]

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.