[Swprograms] Alan Johnston tells his own story to the BBC

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

Alan Johnston, the BBC?s Gaza correspondent was kidnapped by a group known as
The Army of Islam on 12 March 2007. On July the 4th he was finally set free
after 114-days in captivity. Now he tells the full story of his ordeal in this
special edition of his favourite UK BBC Radio 4 programme From Our Own
Correspondent which will also broadcast on BBC World Service.

Alan talks of the room in which he was held with its ?narrow sagging bed and
two plastic chairs?. How he was stripped of his watch and could only tell the
time by the passage of the sun and the five calls to prayer from nearby
mosques. How he had to throw away his disposable contact lenses on the first
day and how, ?in this blurred, empty room? he began to come to terms with the
disaster which had engulfed him.

He says he felt very very far from home and aghast at the situation he was in. 

He worried about the impact his abduction would have on his elderly parents and
his sister at home in Scotland. His captors allowed him to see a television
appeal his parents made for his release and Alan said it was a vast relief for
him to see his father?s ?powerful and dignified? address on TV. ?For me,? he
says in this programme, ?it was their finest hour.?

Trying to keep control of his mind in this situation was, he says, one of the
greatest challenges he?s ever had to face. ?It was the psychological battle of
my life.? He passed time thinking back to his childhood, about his career and
about past girlfriends. His ordeal gave him plenty of time to regret the
decision he?d made to stay on in Gaza despite the increasing dangers he faced
as BBC correspondent there.

Often during his days in captivity, he thought he would be killed and if this
happened, he thought it likely he would be the subject of an execution video in
the style of those filmed in Iraq. Alan says he didn?t want to be seen on such
a video as a weeping, pleading, broken man; he was determined to preserve his
dignity in his final moments.

He describes how he gradually came to know his guards; particularly one young
man called Khamees who was wanted by the authorities, ?a battle-hardened urban
guerilla? who rarely ventured outdoors and, as the kidnap drew to a close,
smashed Alan in the face.

The violent politics of Gaza eventually shifted against Alan?s kidnappers: as
the powerful Hamas and Fatah factions began a fight to the death he lay in his
room listening to machine gun and rocket fire in the streets outside feeling
lost in a place which had descended into all-out war. But the changing
political scenario finally led to Alan?s release, although he didn?t know this
when he was hooded and violently taken outside and put into the back seat of a
car. Alan believed that at any second a gun battle might erupt and the car
would fill with bullets.

Yet soon he was free and, within days, back in Scotland where all that had
happened to him in Gaza began to slide into the past.  There are still
nightmares but Alan believes he?s ?going to be fine.? 

The kidnap, he reflects, ?was a sort of dark education.? ?I lived through
things which before I would have struggled to imagine?I?ve gained too a deeper
sense of the value of freedom ? even now, more than three months after I was
freed, it can still seem faintly magical to do the simplest things ? like walk
down a street in the sunshine or sit in a café with a newspaper.?

Ends 

For more information please contact: 

Tony Grant, BBC Producer, BBC World Service, 
(UK) +44 (0) 207 0207 557 2191.  tony.grant@xxxxxxxxx 

>From Our Own Correspondent: Alan Johnston's story will be broadcast on BBC
World Service at the following times - All are shown in GMT. 

Australia: Thursday 00:06, 05:06, 11:06 and 16:06 East Asia: Thursday 03:06,
08:06, 13:06, 16:06, 19:06 South Asia: Thursday 04:06, 09:06, 13:06, 16:06,
21:06 East Africa: Thursday 06:06, 11:06, 14:06, 21:06 Friday 01:06 Saturday
06:06, 21:06 Sunday 02:06, 09:06 West Africa: Thursday 09:06, 14:06, 21:06
Friday 00:06 Saturday 13:06 Sunday 09:06 Middle East Thursday 06:06, 13:06,
19:06 Friday 00:06 Saturday 13:06 Sunday 02:06, 09:06 Europe: Thursday 08:06,
11:06, 19:06, 23:06 Friday (Radio 4) 01:06 Saturday (Radio 4) 00:06 Saturday
(BBC World Service) 11:06 Americas: Thursday 13:06, 19:06 Friday 00:06, 05:06
Saturday 13:06, 23:06 Sunday 09:06

(BBC Press Release via DXLD)

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