³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

How terrifying. I'll certainly add my name to the petition and encourage everyone else to also.

i hope the bbc will do their bit to get alan free by sending Palastine to Coventry.SILENCE IS GOLDEN

I signed the petition. I also think that those who kidnapped Alan Johnston have done more harm to their cause. To those in the Middle East who read this, FREE ALAN JOHNSTON.

FREE ALAN JOHNSTON.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will not publish dissenting views on this topic. They are looking for sympathy, not dialogue or diversity of opinion.

mark, why would you want to dissent from a call for mr johnston's release?

Claire Greenstock #6
I have good reasons but they will not likely be published on a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ website. They have been censored on all other ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ forums I have tried to post them on. It's their website, they have the right and power to do whatever they like in this regard.

Mark I'm interested - have a go at stating your opinion one more time.

I am right with you against censorship.

Don't journalists continually moan about censorship and the importance of free speech William?

First of all, by Alan Johnston's father's own account, Mr. Johnston was "a friend to the Palestinian people." How can you be an unbiased reporter if you have emotional ties and friendships with the subject you are supposed to be reporting on? Many agree that Mr. Johnston's reports were intended to focus on "the plight of the Palestinian people." This may sound well and good but I have quite a few objections to it. The underlying reason for their plight is their own doing. The criminals who plan and carry out bombings, killings, kidnappings against Israeli civilians and even against their own people are the neighbors, friends, and relatives of the people Johnston tries to generate sympathy for. In fact to most of them, these criminals are their "national heroes." The reporting is one sided often ignoring or paying much less attention to the victims of these suicide bombers, snipers, and people who launch rockets at private homes in Israel. It is a way of obfuscating the central fact of the middle east, that Israel's Arab neighbors and now many others in the Islamic world including Iran have waged a relentless war every single day to destroy Israel since it was created and quite frankly it's chief supporter the United States. This war has gone under various names and used many tactics. There were four wars in which neighboring countries vowed "to throw the Isrealis into the sea." It's been called intifada, and armed struggle which translates into terrorism. It's been called "armed resistance" which means the same thing. It's even been called a peace plan under various guises such as the Oslo Process, confidence building, the roadmap to peace but however it's been hidden, it has always boiled down to the same thing, genocide. Johnston's value to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has been to divert attention from this fact in service of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ managers' own political bias and agenda. It is Ironic that the people who kidnapped and possibly killed Johnston already are the friends, relatives, neighbors, and national heroes of the people he calls his friends and whose cause he champions. It's wise to choose your friends carefully, you never know what they could do to you.

Many reporters get injured or killed in doing their jobs, it's an occupational hazard. Think of how many war correspondents were killed, how many tried to get stories about rebel movements or go on a crusade to expose despots and tyrants only to find themselves in jail or dead. Russia is a recent example. But this particular one has been especially singled out by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. Why? We certainly didn't hear nearly as much about Daniel Pearl from the Wall Street Journal who tried to get a story about Al Qaeda. He naively wanted to "tell their side of it." Even the fiften Royal Navy sailors captured a few weeks ago didn't get coverage to this degree yet their job was to protect and defend Britain, not to get out a story. And that's another thing, this notion that somehow journalists are the most important people in the world who should get special protection and immunity from danger is laughable. Besides the fact that the criminals aren't going to buy it, we all rely on people who provide us with far more important services in our lives than reporting the news. Doctors, medics, ambulance drivers, police, firemen, providers of food, those who work on vital utilities such as electric power, water and gas, not to mention those who sell us gasoline and keep our cars and public transportation running. No journalists figure very far down on the list of those we depend on for our lives but to hear ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and many journalists themseselves tell it, you'd think they were the most important people in the world...just like the delusion of philosophers I cited in another thread.

I'm truely sorry Mr. Johnston was kidnapped and I hope he is returned safely sometime soon to those who love him and care about him but I am not in the least bit sorry his stories have ceased. I've thought about who would want to silence him. Obviously he isn't being held for ransom or there would have been a demand already. Whoever it was probably know who he was, what he was doing, and wanted to put a stop to it. Was it the Israelis? I considered it but I don't think so. He was at worst an irritiant and they have much bigger fish to fry such as those planning more suicide bombings or those responsible for capturing and holding their kidnapped soldier. It's not their style anyway but if he meant something to them, I wouldn't put it past them. But for me all signs point to Hamas. Johnston has inadvertently made every one of his reports a finger in their eye by pointing out their utter failure to keep their campaign promises since they came to power. Life has gotten much worse for Palestinians, not better. They are further away than ever from having a state and Israel doesn't look like it will be destroyed anytime soon. I guess they just coundn't take his revelations about them anymore, even if he didn't intend it that way.

It doesn't look like the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is censoring you Mark. You've had the freedom to put your views here. It's a pity those who abducted Alan wouldn't afford him similar freedom.

I received the following letter from Richard Bowen on 3-28 in reply to one of my first attempts to post on this subject which was on the blog site "Editors";

Hi Mark,

While we welcome your strong opinions on almost all topics, we are sure
you will understand that, for at least as long as Alan remains in
captivity, this one strays over the 'taste and decency' barrier and will
not be posted.

Kind regards,

Richard

In looking at that post, I can see that there were one or two unfortunate words or phrases which might have precluded its posting. However, differently worded efforts on that and several other ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ blog sites all met with the same result, none were posted. Here was my reply to him about this particular one;

Mr. Bowen;

When ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ stops telling lies about Israel and America, I will stop trying to tell the truth about ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.

Mark

I'm not saying that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ doesn't have every right to do what they did. As I said it is their site. There is no guarantee that even within their rules that they must publish everything everyone sends. But when they do exercise this right, nobody should be under any illusions that they don't.

I have no idea how long this one will be viewable and it would not surprise me if it is removed. That is also their right.

I too would unequivocally call on the Palestinians to release Alan Johnston.

Palestinians' major allies are in the west and are only angered by assaults on western democracy, ie a free press.

Having said that, Mark has some very valid points.

We have to remember Alan's father is diplomatically calling for his son's release, so what else would he (or you or I) call his son here but "a friend" of the Palestinian people.

But on the other hand, how many journalists would have qualms about being called "a friend of the Israeli people?"

Most I would say.

Mark is correct, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ does go soft on Middle Eastern terrorism.

Who says?

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ themselves. Read this report on the matter by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Governors.

The Governors said the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ should not shy away from describing attacks on Israel as terrorist attacks "because most of them are" and recommended this become policy.

This has completely fallen on deaf ears at the beeb despite being published with great fanfare almost a year ago.

I spoke to a senior ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ official with some responsibility in this area and asked why nobody ever reported on the similar situation in Cyprus; Turkey currently illegally occupies half that country and created a similar number of Cypriot refugees as was created during the 1948 wars in Israel. Who cares?

And I also asked him why nobody ever reports on the Jewish refugees who were ejected from the Arab world overnight during the creation of Israel, with only their shirts on their backs.

There were a similar number of Jewish refugees as those Palestinian refugees at the time, and where did the Jewish refugees go to? little choice but Israel, thus multiplying the Jewish population overnight, further excerbating tensions in the area.

But who ever cares about all the lands and bank accounts these Jews were forced to leave behind in the Arab world? Who remembers their "right of return" and right to compensation???? Who?

Is this part of a balanced coverage to the story? Of course it is, unless Palestinians dispossession is more important than Jewish dispossession; but that would be discrimination and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ doesnt do that, does it?

The response from the senior ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ official to these questions was verging on hostile; he basically said that the Palestinians get more coverage because they cause more mayhem.

And he obviously had no intention of reviewing his sympathies either.

Its worth nothing that if this had happened in Israel there would be worldwide protests. But the chances of this happening are slim because Israel has free speech and a free press; the only such country in the middle east, in fact.

On this Reporters San Frontiers image, the deeper the red, the more oppressive the censorship;-

Note the press in Israel is marked as comparable to the USA and UK, unlike the rest of the middle east. This compounds the problem of getting the truth about what the Arab world is actually doing and saying about Israel.

"Damn your freedom" I believe was one placard held by some Muslim in London last year.

In none of this am I defending any wrongs committed by Israel, please note.

It is just that I dont see how you can get a grasp on these important matters in the politically correct dominated press.

PB

I too called for Alan's release and left a comment about ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ objectivity Mark, hope it gets in.

PB

pb #12, Palestinians may have their only allies in the west as their so called Arab brothers have abandoned them and let them stay in refugee camps for 60 years but the Palestinians are no friends of westerners, least of all America. I don't know what they showed you on British TV but on American TV they showed Palestinians rejoicing in the streets after the attacks on the US on 9-11-01. The Palestinian hatred for Jews and Israel is so universal that during the war in 1991 when Saddam Hussein was firing rockets at Israel and Israelis were huddled in their makeshift rooms to offer themselves some protection against attack with chemical weapons warheads on those scud missiles, Palestinians were on their rooftops cheering the missile attacks hoping they did have chemical warheads even though they knew they would die too. What kind of human being would send their own children out into the streets to throw rocks at armed enemy soldiers and tanks? They hate Isreal more than they love their own children, more than they love life itself. How can there ever be peace with people whose minds have been so thoroughly poisoned with hate by their so called leaders? And ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ aids and abets them using people like Alan Johnston...and I am forced to subsidize it through my taxes which support NPR's and PBS's contracts to rebroadcast ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ on my local radio and televison stations. That is why I have no reservation about expressing my feelings of disgust at what ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has become, a fulminating fountain of vicious lies and propaganda directed by its corrupt and apparantly unaccountable management.

PB, stop being paranoid!

What happened to the rest of the postings after #9? One more of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s endless string of computer failures...or one more example of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ censorship? I told you Claire that my postings on this topic might not be permitted here. If you happen blink, don't be surprised if #9 and this one just evaporates too. Pfffft.

By the way, when cornered and forced to give an explanation, censors ALWAYS have some implausible excuse to rationalize why they prohibit the expression of certain ideas. Invariably it's for the public good or decency of taste. Frankly, I don't think my postings will change Alan Johnston's fate one iota. That it could is not plausible. I must say though that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ was very clever about tricking the new and clearly inexperienced Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon into openly taking up its cause for him. Don't you think he'd have more pressing items on his agenda...like Darfur or Iran's not so secret program to build an atom bomb?

Mark #16- Don't be so paranoid. Nobody is censoring you; there are ongoing software issues as we all know.

Yeah Mark, your comments are so dangerous to the existence of civilisation as\we know it and so utterly radical that they have to be censored to protect the rest of us.

THANK YOU ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳!!!!!!!!

All journalists have views and sympathies. Alan Johnston is entitled to his views. If he was a correspondent in Paris and was described as a friend of the French people, no one would be raising an issue.

helenanne #19
Why would anyone be a friend to the French people? I lived in France for nearly two years and I can tell you from first hand experience that even the French aren't friends to the French People. Check my comments on the upcoming elections in France on WHYS.

To those who think I am paranoid, I have sent at least 20 postings to the "Editors" and "WHYS" expressing exactly what I said in my posting #9 here and not one of them was published. I'm surprised this one got by. It's not paranoia...when you are right.

Thinking of all his family and friends.