Kidnapped CBC reporter freed
The kidnapping in Kabul of CBC journalist Mellissa Fung was kept secret for four weeks. On Saturday the CBC reported her release “into the custody of Canadian officials.” …
CBC said reporter Mellissa Fung, previously based in Regina, “was taken by armed
men who approached her in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul on
Oct. 12. The journalist, who was stationed at the NATO military base in
Kandahar but was visiting the Kabul-area camp to report on a story, was
then taken to the mountains west of the Afghan capital.”
The men
were bandits, said CBC. The story quoted an Afghanistan spokesperson
saying she “was freed after tribal elders and provincial council
members negotiated her release.” CBC said Fung is “in good health and
undergoing a medical examination.”
A video of CBC publisher John Cruickshank’s press conference about Fung’s release is here. (It’s in QuickTime; there are other links on the main story for those with different media players.)
An Associated Press report
noted, “Western news organizations in Afghanistan, including The
Associated Press, had been aware of Fung’s abduction, but the CBC
requested that her case not be publicized for safety considerations
while officials tried to negotiate her release.”
AP also
reported “Fung is the second abducted foreign journalist to be released
in two days. On Friday, a Dutch journalist kidnapped just outside of
the capital, Kabul, was freed unharmed after nearly a week in captivity
…. Joanie de Rijke, 43, was kidnapped Nov. 1 while working on a story
for Belgium’s P magazine on the deaths of 10 French troops in a Taliban
ambush in August.”
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