We all hope that the weekend’s worrying news about BBC Gaza Correspondent Alan Johnstone is untrue. It’s amazing that in such a tiny, Intelligence-soaked territory such as Gaza that this hostage-taking could happen without anyone being able to find the journalist or his captors. But as a guest-blogger reported here on this blog, kidnapping
is a regular occurance in the Palestinian territories. It’s a sign of how normal political life has been destroyed. And it’s another reminder of what we’ve reported on a lot at POLIS, of how journalists are now very much seen as useful ammunition in the asymmetric warfare of the Middle East.
A comment from Massoumeh Torfeh, former BBC journalist:
“I have worked closely with Alan both in BBC’s newsroom and in Afghanistan where he was BBC’s correspondent. He is one of those exceptionally briliant journalists who mixes a sharp insight into his subject with a soft approach and great compassion for truth. No compassionate freedom fighter caring for Palestinians could have possibly wanted him silenced. I am rather disappointed with the BBC and the level of investigation into his capture. By now we should have had some good information about what is going on and a far more active role in releasing him. Instead we are told repeatedly that everything is being done but there is no information about Alan. Yet BBC seems able to verify some details so it obviously has knowlege of his whereabouts. Years of BBC investigative journalism of highest standards and a good network of contacts in Gaza should have enabled us to secure better results by now. Perhaps I am being unfair on the BBC but I think the answer does not lie so much in the exceptionally difficult circumstances in Gaza — dangerous as they undoubtedly are — but instead in our inability to cope with those exceptional circumstances to protect and release Alan.”