Ö÷²¥´óÐã

A birth message from Jon Williams, World Editor, Ö÷²¥´óÐã News, Jerusalem

I’d been foreign editor for less than a month the first time I went to Gaza. The Erez Crossing - the frontier with Israel - is a modern day time-machine. A 20 minute walk from one side to the other, but one which turns the clock back 20 years. Think check-point Charlie at the height of the cold war – it’s the front line in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and it bears the scars of war to prove it.

On one side, sits the State of Israel’s finest modern technology; the searching, scanning, and scrutinising are all done by robots. On the other, a man with a pencil writes your passport details into a battered exercise book. Erez and Gaza : the place where two worlds collide.

For the last three years, this has been the domain of Alan Johnston; Gaza is one of the most difficult places on earth in which to work. Hard enough at the best of times; but for Alan, his friends and his family, the last nine weeks have been the worst of times.

For 66 days he’s been incarcerated, who knows where. Alan was abducted at gunpoint on March 12th; later, his family and friends had first to hear a statement telling the world of his death, then to see a video making demands in return for his life. Every day brings new rumour and speculation, but precious few facts.

Alan is one of more than 200 Ö÷²¥´óÐã correspondents – an extraordinary group of people who often remain in the world’s trouble spots just as everyone else is getting out. For 75 years they’ve been eyewitnesses to history. Required often to be brave, dedicated and courageous, they endure hardship and danger because they believe a story needs to be told. But the bomb, the kidnap, the gunshot are the correspondent’s worst nightmare. They’re the foreign editor’s too.

I’ve learned more in the last few weeks about hostages – and kidnappers – than in forty years of reading thrillers and watching films. I’ve met people who – once Alan is free – will slink back into the shadows and hope we’ll forget their existence. I’ve formed friendships that will endure long beyond this ordeal. I’ve learned to marvel at the resilience of Alan’s family – and I’ve been humbled by the response of the audience – the listeners in Africa, America, and Asia who’ve written in their thousands to pledge their support for the man whose reporting has brought Gaza to their doorstep. And who’ve joined our demand for Alan’s immediate release.

Two weeks ago, a large group of Palestinian journalists demonstrated near the wall – the barrier, the fence – call it what you will that separates Israel and the Gaza Strip. They called for Alan to be released, urged the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya to take action to get him freed. A few hundred metres from them, on the other side of the frontier, another group of journalists was doing the same on the Israeli side of the border.

At its heart, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is an organisation more comfortable with reporting the news than making it. But for nine weeks, we’ve sought to keep Alan’s ordeal in the public eye – helping to organise petitions, posters, and rallies. And not just in London. Far beyond the Middle East, colleagues have rallied to Alan’s cause – in Beijing, Buenos Aires, Brussels and Bangkok. In Kabul, Paris, New York and Jakarta, Alan Johnston’s case has been taken up by those who know him – and those who don’t.

Alan is a quiet, modest man – someone who never sought the limelight. But when all this is over, amid the embarrassment at the hullabaloo, I bet he’ll reflect how – in a region where people agree on few things - his plight has brought individuals together. From the divided Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, Arab and Israeli, East and West – they’ve all been united in demanding Alan’s freedom.

Nine weeks on, one thing I’ve learned is that most hostages actually do know what’s going on – incarceration doesn’t necessarily mean they’re cut off from the outside world. I was told one hostage in Iraq heard from his kidnappers that they’d just seen his wife on the television pleading for his release. Terry Waite famously listened to the World Service during his ordeal in Beirut. In Gaza, I dare to dream that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is the kidnappers’ channel of choice.

For more than fifty years on this programme, the news has been broadcast from our own correspondents. Today – with apologies to you – I want to send a message to one of our own. Day 66 of Alan Johnston’s captivity is also his 45th birthday. Most likely there’ll be no candles or cake.

But my hope is, that somehow, somewhere Alan will be able to listen. His family, his friends, his colleagues all miss him. We want him home. Our birthday wish is his immediate release. Happy birthday Alan.