Say, remember how Alan Johnston said in a video that he was being treated kindly and looked after well? Turns out not so much. (Well, no, we didn’t believe him.)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Gaunt but smiling, kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston emerged Wednesday from 16 weeks of solitary confinement in a dark room, an experience he said was “like being buried alive.”
[...] At a news conference with Hamas officials, Johnston - who was held in captivity far longer than any other foreigner kidnapped in Gaza - described his experience as “occasionally terrifying.”
“The last 16 weeks, of course, were just the very worst you can imagine of my life, like being buried alive, really, removed from the world,” he said.
Headed by a man known as Abu Khaled, he said, his kidnappers were “often rude and unpleasant.” They kept him chained and in solitary confinement for 16 weeks and “did threaten my life a number of times in various ways,” Johnston said.
[...] After his release in Gaza, Johnston recounted for reporters how he was chained up for 24 hours at one point, moved twice during his captivity and beaten “a bit” in the last half hour before he was released.
After getting sick because of the food early in his captivity, he said, he was given a simple diet of bread, cheese and eggs. After the first month, he was confined to an apartment where the shutters were always drawn.
“It’s been basically three months since I saw the sun,” he told BBC TV.
Imagine that. His Islamic captors were not the kind, gentle captors that we are told Muslims are supposed to be. I’m shocked. Shocked, I say. I simply can’t imagine how Gilad Shalit is being treated, assuming (and it’s still a very big assumption) that he’s still alive.
I found this part of the article very interesting:
After his release, Johnston was surrounded by armed Hamas security men and hustled to a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, the former Palestinian prime minister who now heads the Hamas regime in Gaza. Haniyeh draped a Palestinian flag around Johnston’s shoulders - which he quickly removed - and pinned a Palestinian flag pin on his blue blazer.
Trying to keep that famous impartiality, eh?
Love the way Hamas is milking this. There are currently over 1800 news items on Google News, second only to the Scooter Libby story. But I think it will be short-lived, and it will do nothing to change the way the world thinks of the organization of terrorists and murderers.
And of course, Johnston did not go to Egypt when he was freed. He was rushed to Jerusalem, where he knew he would be safe and cared for.
After a breakfast of beans and falafel with Haniyeh, Johnston set out for Jerusalem in the company of British diplomats, arriving at Britain’s Jerusalem consulate later in the morning and waving to a crowd of reporters waiting outside. The BBC’s Jerusalem bureau was decorated with colorful balloons, and bottles of champagne were open on the newsdesk.
Yep. Safe in Israel. Not safe in Gaza. It’s a no-brainer.
Asked if he would return to Gaza, Johnston told Al-Jazeera satellite news, “After many months of kidnapping, I think I need a break.”
There’s a live press conference with Johnston right now. First thing he said: “My job is about putting ideas into words.” Uh, no, that job is to report the news. At least there’s no sign of the Palestinian flag pin on his jacket anymore. He’s thanking the international media and the BBC. He is most notably not thanking Hamas. Hm. There may be hope after all.
