Alan Johnston | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 May 1962 |
| Education | MA in English and politics, University of Dundee. Diploma in journalism studies Cardiff University. |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse | Fiona Mitchell |
| Parent(s) | Graham and Margaret Johnston |
Alan Graham Johnston (born 17 May 1962) is a British journalist working for the BBC. He has been the BBC's correspondent in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and Italy. He is based in London.
Johnston was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip on 12 March 2007 by the militant group Army of Islam. He was unconditionally released on 4 July, nearly four months later, after much pressure was put on the group by the now-dominant Hamas.
Johnston was born in Lindi, Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), [1] to Scottish parents. [2]
Johnston was educated at the Dollar Academy, an independent school in the small town of Dollar in Clackmannanshire in central Scotland, [3] followed by the University of Dundee, where he graduated with an MA in English and politics. [1] He also completed a diploma in Journalism Studies from Cardiff University. [1]
Johnston joined the BBC in 1991, and has spent eight years as a correspondent for them, including in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as well as Kabul, Afghanistan. [1] He was in Kabul when Afghanistan was still under the control of the Taliban. [4] He was due to be the BBC's full-time correspondent in Gaza until 1 April 2007, and at the time of his kidnapping was the only foreign reporter with a major Western media organisation to still be based in the city. [1] [5] [6]
Johnston covered many major stories in Gaza for the BBC, including Israel's unilateral disengagement plan in 2005, Hamas winning the 2006 legislative elections, the 2006 Israel-Gaza conflict and the Palestinian factional violence of late 2006 to 2007. [4]
Johnston is highly regarded by the BBC as a respected, experienced journalist, [7] and due to his local knowledge, he was someone other journalists would turn to for information when in Gaza. [6] Prior to being kidnapped however, Johnston was not a journalist well known to the general public. Following his release he announced his intention to return to obscurity [8] though, as of January 2008, he took over the presentation of the BBC World Service version of the programme From Our Own Correspondent .
Johnston's BBC colleague Paul Adams noted that it was Johnston's "job to bring us day after day reports of the Palestinian predicament in the Gaza Strip." [1] Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian Information Minister, has described Johnston as a "friend of our people", and said that Johnston "has done a lot for our cause." [9] Imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti has also called Johnston a "friend of the Palestinian people". [10]
When not working as a correspondent, Johnston produced radio reports, one of which, on life after the Taliban, won a Sony Radio Academy Award bronze. [11] Johnston has also worked as programme editor of The World Today and as a general reporter in the BBC World Service newsroom. [12]
From November 2011 to August 2014, Johnston was the BBC correspondent in Rome. From October 2014, Johnston has stated on his Twitter account (@AlanJohnstonBBC) that he is now based in London.
The day after he was released, Johnston was awarded a prize by Amnesty International for his radio reports on human rights in Gaza, praising him for his "commitment to telling ordinary peoples' stories." [13]
On 12 March 2007, Johnston was kidnapped by the Army of Islam. His captivity led to many protests worldwide. Hamas put immense pressure on the Army of Islam, including (according to a senior Hamas militant) the threat to hunt them down and kill them if they did not release Johnston. [14] [15] On 4 July 2007, Johnston was freed. He was taken to meet Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before leaving for Jerusalem with an entourage of British diplomats.
On 19 June 2008, the University of Dundee conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws upon Johnston.
Hamas, officially the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Sunni Islamist political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories. Headquartered in Gaza City, it also has a presence in the West Bank, in which its secular rival Fatah exercises control. Hamas is widely considered to be the "dominant political force" within the Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian National Authority, commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over West Bank areas "A" and "B" as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, although the United Nations continues to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "representative of the Palestinian people".
Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti is a Palestinian political figure convicted and imprisoned for murder by an Israeli court. He is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. Barghouti at one time supported the peace process, but later became disillusioned, and after 2000 went on to become a leader of the Second Intifada from the West Bank. Barghouti was a leader of Tanzim, a paramilitary offshoot of Fatah.
Army of Islam, officially The Army of Islam Group in Jerusalem, is a Salafi Jihadist militant organization in the Gaza Strip. It was founded by the Doghmush clan in 2006, and is based in the Tzabra neighborhood in the center of the Gaza Strip. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the UAE.
Steven James "Steve" Centanni is an American former news reporter for Fox News Channel.
The Fatah–Hamas conflict is an ongoing political and strategic conflict between Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political parties in the Palestinian territories, leading to the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The reconciliation process and unification of Hamas and Fatah administrations remains unfinalized and the situation is deemed a frozen conflict.
The 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict, known in Israel as Operation Summer Rains, was a series of battles between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during summer 2006, prompted by the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006. Large-scale conventional warfare occurred in the Gaza Strip, starting on 28 June 2006, which was the first major ground operation in the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement plan was implemented between August and September 2005.
Greg Myre is an American journalist and an NPR national security correspondent with a focus on the intelligence community. Before joining NPR, he was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and The New York Times for 20 years. He reported from more than 50 countries and covered a dozen wars and conflicts.
Stephen Farrell is a journalist who works for Reuters news agency. He holds both Irish and British citizenship. Farrell worked for The Times from 1995 to 2007, reporting from Kosovo, India, Afghanistan and the Middle East, including Iraq. In 2007, he joined The New York Times, and reported from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Libya, later moving to New York and London. In 2017 he joined Reuters, working as bureau chief in Jerusalem until Jan. 2022. He then worked in Ukraine and is now based in London.
The Doghmush is a Palestinian family from the Gaza Strip.
The kidnapping of Alan Johnston, a British journalist for the BBC, by the Palestinian Army of Islam in Gaza City took place on 12 March 2007, following which Johnston was held in captivity for 114 days.
Al-Aqsa TV is a television channel run by Hamas, which is based in the Gaza Strip. Its programs include news and propaganda promoting Hamas, children's shows, and religiously inspired entertainment. It is currently directed by Fathi Hamad, who is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Interior Minister of the Gaza Strip. The channel is named after Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.
Tel al-Hawa is a neighborhood in the southern part of the Palestinian city of Gaza. Founded by the Palestinian National Authority in the late 1990s, Tel al-Hawa is one of the more affluent areas of the city. It contains the Islamic University in Gaza and the Interior Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority.
Media played an important part of the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. Foreign press access to Gaza has been limited since November 2008 via either Egypt or Israel. On 29 December 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that journalists be allowed into Gaza whenever the crossings were opened, but the IDF refused to comply. There have been arrests of journalists due to violations of wartime censorship in Israel, and these have been denounced by international press organizations. Media infrastructure, including Al-Aqsa TV transmission equipment and foreign and local press offices, were hit during the conflict. Media relations also played an important role, with the use of new media on the part of Israel, as well as a clear public relations campaign.
Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, and is the branch of al-Qaeda in Gaza. The establishment of the group was publicly announced on 6 November 2008, with communiqués vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having "received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri." Various forms of the "Tawhid al-Jihad" label have appeared in relation to developments in the Gaza Strip. The size of the group is not publicly known.
Vittorio Arrigoni was an Italian reporter, writer, pacifist and activist. Arrigoni worked with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip, from 2008 until he was murdered by Palestinian extremists. Arrigoni maintained a website, Guerrilla Radio, and published a book of his experiences in Gaza during the 2008–09 Gaza War between Hamas and Israel. Arrigoni was the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston's abduction in 2007. He was subsequently killed by Palestinian Salafists. His murder was condemned by various Palestinian groups.
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, also known as Wafa al-Ahrar, followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners — almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, although there were also a Ukrainian, a Jordanian and a Syrian. Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets.
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge , was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since 2007. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother's Keeper, in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in over two thousand deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians.
Media coverage of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict were varied depending on the media source. In the English-speaking world, U.S. news sources were often more sympathetic to Israel, while British news sources were more critical of Israel. Commentators on both sides have claimed that the media is biased either for or against Israel. According to The Times of Israel, British sources were more often critical of Israel. As the conflict progressed and Palestinian deaths increased, media became somewhat more critical of Israel.
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