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Time to end media silence

More than a year after two Welshmen, two Scots and a British computer expert were abducted in Iraq, the Foreign Office maintains its media blackout policy. David James asks how long this can be justified...

THE BBC’s kidnapped reporter Alan Johnston said it first. Speaking after he was released from captivity in the Gaza strip last summer, he crystallised an unspoken fear about the news blackout imposed on the plight of five men kidnapped in Iraq two months earlier.

He said: “My heart goes out to anybody in that situation. You worry the world will forget you.”

These words came from a man who had earlier spoken of the solace he had taken from hearing his name on BBC World Service radio reports as he sat, despondent, in captivity.

They must have been painful to hear for the families of the hostages abducted in Baghdad on May 29, as they were being advised by the Foreign Office not to talk to the media.

Since Mr Johnston spoke out last summer, criticism of the UK Government’s so-called “news blackout” on the kidnappings has grown.

The release of a video of relations of the hostage victims speaking out on the anniversary of the abduction did not identify the five men and has not been followed by a change of Foreign Office policy.

Politicians and former hostages are calling for the strategy to be re-examined.

As we now know, two of these hostages are Welsh, one from Llanelli and one from Cardiff, two are from Scotland, and one is a Lincoln-based computer expert called Peter Moore.

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