BBC correspondent Alan Johnston’s abductors have demanded $5 million for his release, the London-based Asharq Alawsat reported Tuesday even as the police in the Gaza Strip scuffled with journalists demonstrating in support the journalist.
The demand for ransom contradicts reports circulated Sunday that Johnston had been executed, which Palestinian Authority security officials said they could neither confirm nor deny. The Tawheed and Jihad Brigades in Palestine had previously announced in a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip that its members had killed Johnston because of Israel’s refusal to release Palestinian prisoners.
The group, which PA security officials said was linked to al-Qaida, promised to release a video showing the execution of Johnston, 44, who was kidnapped in Gaza City more than a month ago.
The family of the British journalist, kidnapped in the Gaza Strip on March 12, pleaded Monday for his captors to “end this ordeal” following unconfirmed reports he had been killed.
Johnston, 44, was seized by four armed men in a white Subaru as he drove near the BBC’s Gaza City office on Al-Wihdah Street around 2 pm on March 12. Johnston was quickly identified because he threw his business card on the street, according to news reports. Johnston, who joined BBC in 1991, has been based in Gaza since April 2004. He was due to return to London at the end of this month.
Johnston, who has been held captive longer than any other journalist abducted in Gaza, is the 15th journalist abducted in the Gaza Strip. All previously abducted journalists were released unharmed.
“For more than a day now, we have been seeking independent verification and demanding urgent clarification from the Foreign Office and the Palestinian authorities,” BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said Monday at a gathering of employees. “But right now, the report is simply rumour.”
Meanwhile, security guards at the Palestinian Authority parliament on Tuesday scuffled with a group of Palestinian journalists who were demonstrating in support of Johnston, pushing back reporters and beating two of them with rifle butts. A cameraman and a reporter were slightly injured in the incident.
The agents in charge of the parliament’s security use violence to disperse the journalists when they asked to meet with parliamentarians. Agence France-Presse photographer Mohammed Al Baba was injured in the face and his glasses were broken. Ashraf Al Kafarna, a cameraman with the Palestinian news agency Ramattan, had a finger broken. Zakaria Al Talmas, the correspondent of the German television station ARD, was injured in a foot.
“We are outraged by this violence against journalists who had gone to express their fears and emotion about Johnston’s fate,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “With journalists already having to endure so much in the Palestinian Territories, it is unacceptable that violence was used when all they wanted was to be heard by the authorities.”
About 200 journalists had gathered outside the building, seeking information about Johnston. When journalists tried to enter parliament to talk to lawmakers about the case, the guards violently pushed them back and barred them from entering. The journalists called on lawmakers to come out of the building to talk to them. Some held signs and photos that said “Free Alan.”
“We came to ask those lawmakers about the facts and the truth on the fate of our kidnapped colleague,” said Saadi Alkasaef, an activist in the local journalists’ union. “It’s more than a month right now and we are concerned for Alan’s life after the statement released two days ago. We came peacefully, but we are being assaulted now.”
“We are deeply concerned about the safety and well being of our colleague Alan Johnston and continue to hope for his release,” Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Executive Director Joel Simon said. “We feel for Alan’s family and colleagues who have endured the pain and stress of this ordeal. We also call on the Palestinian authorities to do everything in their power to locate and bring to safety our missing colleague.”
The BBC, Al-Jazeera, and Sky News aired a joint live broadcast calling for Johnston’s release on Thursday last. The special programme highlighted Johnston’s reporting in Gaza, the near-daily protests Palestinian journalists have held since his abduction, and the dangers of reporting from the increasingly lawless strip.
Also on Thursday, the BBC organised an “international day of action” in which Palestinian journalists held rallies in Gaza and the West Bank town of Ramallah. BBC Director-General Mark Thompson held a news conference in Ramallah to appeal for Johnston’s release. In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for Johnston’s abductors to “release him unconditionally and immediately.”
