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BBC correspondent spends 100 days as hostage

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: Daily Times and The Friday Times on Wednesday joined 100 news organisations worldwide to take part in Reporters Without Borders-organised activities in Paris, London and Arab countries to mark BBC correspondent Alan Johnston’s 100th day as a hostage in Gaza.

The Paris-based press freedom organisation believes it is essential to keep campaigning for Johnston’s release as no previous kidnapping in Gaza has ever gone on for so long.

In Paris, Reporters Without Borders brought 100 activists and volunteers together on the grass of the Camp-de-Mars, opposite the Eiffel Tower, where they brandished the logos of 100 news media throughout the world who responded to the organisation’s call to participate in a collective appeal for the release of Johnston and 14 journalists held hostage in Iraq.

On Tuesday night, Reporters Without Borders staged a projection of Johnston’s photo on the facade of the famous Battersea Power Station building overlooking the Thames in London. Posters of Johnston were also put up in Gaza and Beirut, and were due to be displayed in other Middle East capitals.

The organisation also produced an Arabic-language spot calling for the release of kidnapped journalists in the Palestinian territories and Iraq that has been broadcast by local and satellite TV stations in the region.

“We must now, more than ever, take action to demand Alan Johnston’s swift release,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This BBC correspondent must not be forgotten as the Gaza Strip is plunged into more and more violent crises. It falls to Hamas, which now has sole control of the Gaza Strip, to do everything possible to obtain his release. Johnston should not have to pay for the instability in the Palestinian Territories, which he had been covering since 2005.”

The press freedom organisation added: “Ismael Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders must also order their security services to ensure that journalists are able to work safely and without restrictions in the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, more journalists will be taken hostage in the future.”

Kidnapped on March 12 in Gaza City, Johnston on Wednesday completed his 100th day as a captive. The chaos reigning in the Gaza Strip is making negotiations even more difficult. Promises by different Palestinian officials that he was about to be freed have not been kept.

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