Baltimore journalist, filmmaker detained in India for nearly 2 months

Bridget Byrne, Racquel Bazos, Baltimore Sun on May 9, 2026

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BALTIMORE — A Maryland-born journalist and filmmaker who grew up and attended school in Baltimore has been detained in India for nearly two months, his family said.

Matthew VanDyke, 46, was arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency on March 13, according to a Thursday news release from his family and lawyers.

“You have to know Matthew to understand why he does what he does. It can be complicated. He just strongly believes that everyone should live in a democracy and be able to select their religion, elect their leaders and once he gets a passion for something, there’s no turning back,” Sharon VanDyke, his mother, said in an interview Saturday.

Since April 6, he has been held in Tihar Prison in New Delhi. The largest prison in South Asia, it is notoriously overcrowded and has poor conditions, according to academic research.

“I’m 79, his father’s 84, I don’t know if we’ll see our son again,” she said.

Indian authorities allege VanDyke and six Ukrainian nationals illegally entered restricted areas near India’s northeastern border, crossed into Myanmar and provided training to armed groups operating there.

His family sees a humanitarian emergency and considers the treatment he is suffering to be evil, his mother said.

VanDyke’s family believes Russia may be involved in keeping him detained because VanDyke has publicly supported Ukraine and was arrested alongside six Ukrainian nationals. Russia has close ties to Myanmar’s military government, which is fighting armed opposition groups within the country.

VanDyke is best known for his film “Point and Shoot,” which won best documentary feature at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014. It documented his experiences during the Libyan revolution.

This is not his first experience in captivity. He was arrested in 2011 by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and held for nearly six months before being released.

“Fifteen years ago, I had a very different feeling,” his mother said. “I always thought he was alive. I didn’t know where. I just hoped and prayed.”

He later founded Sons of Liberty International after the killings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, whom he knew while reporting in the Middle East. According to its website, the group describes itself as a nonprofit organization that provides free military advising and training to communities facing insurgency and terrorism.

His lawyers said VanDyke is cooperating with Indian authorities and working toward “a fair and timely resolution.”

But Sharon VanDyke and Gio Santos, Matthew’s fiancée, said they are increasingly concerned about VanDyke’s health while in custody. When he left the U.S., he appeared healthy to his family, but now they know he has at times been unable to walk and required a wheelchair during an April 6 hearing before later using a walker in jail.

“It was a shock to us when we saw it on the news from India that his attorneys were helping him walk,” Santos said.

They also said that since he was detained in March, he has not been getting needed medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and migraines from a past traumatic brain injury.

VanDyke grew up on Randall Street in South Baltimore, the fifth generation of his family to live in that house. His mother taught and worked as an administrator in city schools for 42 years.

“I had bright people around me in my really formative years,” VanDyke told The Baltimore Sun in 2013. “It makes all the difference in the world.”

He attended both Calvert School and Gilman School in Baltimore before graduating from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He later earned a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University. In 2013 and 2014, VanDyke wrote editorials for The Baltimore Sun about the war in Iraq.

The family said it has requested assistance from U.S. officials and urged the American government to intervene on humanitarian grounds.

“[The embassy] told me flat out that they cannot help free him under the circumstances, and that that’s up to the attorneys,” Santos said.

But American attorneys typically charge hundreds of thousands of dollars that the VanDyke family does not have. Santos has been trying to get the attention of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is scheduled to visit India on May 24.

Santos and VanDyke’s mother applied to speak to him over the phone and were denied by Indian authorities. Santos has not spoken to him since he was moved to Tihar Prison in New Delhi on April 6, and his mother last spoke to him on March 22.

When they speak, he is stressed about his living conditions but often preoccupied and concerned about his cat back in the United States, a 21-year-old cat named Angel, whom he rescued from a boat when she was 4 weeks old.

“I hope she holds on until he gets home,” his mother said.