Two journalists freed in Gaza after 13 days
JERUSALEM – After being forced at gunpoint to say they embraced Islam, two Fox News journalists kidnapped 13 days ago were delivered unharmed to a Gaza hotel Sunday.
Palestinian officials said none of the kidnappers’ demands was met, although no arrests were made. A Palestinian militant group said it had convinced the kidnappers to release American Steve Centanni, 60, and New Zealander cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36.
“I’m so happy to be free,” Centanni said shortly after his release.
Little information was made public about the kidnappers, though Saeed Seyam, the Palestinian interior minister, said they are “not al-Qaida.”
Anti-American rhetoric in statements from the group, which called itself the Holy Jihad Brigades, had raised new concerns for the safety of Western aid workers and reporters working in the Palestinian territory.
In a brief and chaotic news conference in Gaza, both Centanni and Wiig said they hope their abduction will not deter reporting on the Gaza Strip.
“My biggest concern really is that as a result of what happened to us, foreign journalists would be discouraged from coming here to tell the story,” Wiig said. “That would be a big tragedy for the people of Palestine and especially for the people of Gaza.”
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders called the journalists’ release “very good news.” But noting the continuing dangers of reporting in the Gaza Strip, the group protested an Israeli missile attack early Sunday on a truck clearly marked “TV,” which seriously injured two Palestinian journalists with the Reuters news agency.
More than a dozen journalists have been briefly abducted in the Gaza Strip in the past year, but the kidnapping of the Fox News television crew was the longest any have been held. Centanni and Wiig were taken out of their car in Gaza on Aug. 14 by four masked gunmen.
Hoods were put over the journalists’ heads, Centanni said in an interview broadcast by Fox News. They were bound tightly with plastic handcuffs, which were “very painful,” driven to a garage and forced to lie face-down on the floor, he said.
Over the days, Centanni said, while other Palestinian groups disavowed and condemned the abduction, the two men were told to “write the story of your life” and other statements and make videotapes, which Centanni said “we didn’t want to do.”
A videotape released last Friday showed the two men appearing casual and relaxed. But another tape, sent to al-Jazeera television just hours before their release Sunday, showed the two men somberly reading texts criticizing the Bush administration and saying they had become Muslims. A statement said they had taken the names Mohammed and Yusef.
“We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint,” Centanni said on Fox News. “Don’t get me wrong here – I have the highest respect for Islam and learned a lot of very good things about it. It was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.”