Taken: Alan Johnston

Oct. 29, 2007 — -- Earlier this year, I took a phone call from an ex-colleague at the BBC in London.

"Alan Johnston's been kidnapped."

He'd been taken on an ordinary Monday morning on March 12.

It was as shocking as it was unsurprising. The BBC's Gaza correspondent had been the only Western journalist who chose to live in the middle of the story he was reporting…Gaza. Some might have been tempted to say that he had now paid the price for his commitment.

Just a year older than myself, Alan worked with me for the BBC's network news division throughout the 1990s. I tended to cover domestic issues, Alan was forever away on a foreign foray. From Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, and then on to Gaza, he was drawn to dangerous places. Yet his reporting was always measured, impartial -- almost understated.

Now, for the first time in more than 20 years of distinguished journalism, Alan Johnston was silent. And nobody knew where or how he was.

From the moment he was taken, the BBC did everything in its power to locate the hostage takers. Working with the British Consulate in Jerusalem and employing its own security team, messages were sent out to various factions.

Almost immediately, sources had suggested a group called the Army of Islam as the likely kidnappers. Given the history of such abductions, there was the ever present fear that Johnston would be executed.

And then, just over a month after he'd been abducted on April 16, a Palestinian Islamist group claimed to have killed him and promised to release video recordings of their murderous act on the Internet. No such video was ever released.

But with no sign from anyone that Alan was still alive, many of us were tempted to lose hope.

It was a few days later that the BBC's Head of World News made contact. He explained that journalists from around the world would be gathering to campaign for Alan's release on May 3: World Press Freedom Day. He asked if I would speak outside the United Nations building in New York and explained that this would be taken live and broadcast around the world by the BBC's World Service television and radio channels.