From Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a reminder of the anniversary of the abduction of Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan in Somalia.

“We are very worried about these two hostages, given the length of their ordeal and the extreme dangers prevailing in Somalia.” Reporters Without Borders said. “We reiterate our support for their families and we hope they will be released without delay.”

Full story at this link…

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Amanda Lindhout, the Canadian journalist kidnapped in Somalia nearly a year ago on August 23 2008, has reportedly made made a public plea over the telephone to Omni TV.

Australian freelance photojournalist Nigel Brennan is also being held in captivity.

Full post at this link…

A campaign site can be found here: http://www.amandalindhout.com/

An online petition to the Canadian and Australian governments can be found at this link.

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“Two French security advisers posing as journalists were abducted from their hotel in Mogadishu on Tuesday by Somali gunmen, according to the foreign ministry and reports from the chaotic Somali capital,” reports the Washington Post.  Full story at this link…

Related:

• The Frontline Blog ran this post yesterday, updating as news broke.

• The AFP reports that, according to the Somali defence minister, the pair were ‘kidnapped for cash not politics’.

Background from the Frontline:

“The Telegraph’s Colin Freeman and photographer José Cendón were kidnapped and held for six weeks earlier this year. Meanwhile, freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan after still being held hostage after being kidnapped in Mogadishu in August, 2008. Their driver and fixer were released in January, 2009. This new kidnap comes at a time of ‘fresh fighting’ in the north of Mogadishu, although one could argue fighting never really gets the time to go stale in Mogadishu.”

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It’s a case about which we know very little information. The Frontline Blog reports on what appears to be the latest communication with the journalists held in Somalia since August 2008: Canadian freelance Amanda Lindhout and Australian freelance Nigel Brennan. It is reported that Lindhout called the CTV national newsroom this week, stating that she is ‘kept in a dark, windowless room in chains without any clean drinking water and little food or no food. I’ve been very sick for months without any medicine.’

Full post at this link…

CTV report at this link.

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“The AFP says one of their Mogadishu based reporters spoke with the two kidnap victims, Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan, in Somalia for five minutes on Sunday. Lindhout in particular sounds to be in a very poor way, if this reported phone call is to be believed (…) This is the first reported communication with the duo since they were kidnapped near Mogadishu in August 2008,” reports the Frontline Blog.

Full story at this link…

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Pop back here at 7pm for a livestream of the Colin Freeman event at the Frontline Club.

From the Frontline website: “Colin Freeman, who was kidnapped in Somalia in November 2008 and held for six weeks, is at the club tonight to discuss his experience and the future for the ‘failed state’ in the Horn of Africa. He’s joined by Mary Harper, a BBC Africa correspondent and Mike Thomson, chief foreign correspondent for the BBC Today programme.”

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Marking six months since their disappearance, this blog post over on the Frontline blog. Graham Holliday has created a timeline, embedded below, marking the course of events.

“Six months ago today [Sunday 22 February] the first reports came in of the kidnap of Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout, freelance photographer Nigel Brennan and their fixers and driver. The team were reportedly abducted just outside Mogadishu. The fixer and driver were subsequently released, but Lindhout and Brennan remain hostage,” he writes.

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In this Telegraph.co.uk audio interview, Colin Freeman describes how he and his fellow detainee, Spanish photographer Jose Cendon, slept in a cave and ate boiled goat during 40 days of captivity in Somalia.

“The kidnappers didn’t really treat us too badly,” says Freeman.

“We’re were also told on one occasion, the gang that were holding us had had an argument, they were threatening to hold us for another year. We don’t think they’d have really done that, but in that situation your mind dwells on the worst possibilities.”

Following his release on Saturday, Freeman said he would enjoy spending time with his family – and a strong pint of lager.

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Further to the interview and news item on the Journalism.co.uk main page, here is the Peyton family’s official statement, made following the conclusion of the inquest investigating the circumstances of BBC journalist Kate Peyton’s death in Somalia in 2005. The Coroner’s verdict can be read here, as reported at the Guardian.

“We are gratified that, after nearly four years, the Coroner has been able to offer some advice as to how the BBC might improve its treatment of journalists asked to undertake dangerous assignments – especially when there may be aspects of their personal lives or of the nature of their employment that impair their capacity to make a clear and considered judgment of issues of risk, both to themselves and their colleagues.

“However, we have found it baffling, depressing and exhausting that the BBC has put so much of its energy, and considerable financial resources, into preventing that advice from being heard – beginning in 2005 with a claim from a senior newsgathering executive that it was ‘neither necessary nor appropriate’ to look into the detail of the deployment and the role of Kate’s immediate manager in it, and concluding with strenuous efforts to narrow the Coroner’s scope so radically that nothing would have been considered other than events after Kate’s arrival in Mogadishu.

“We would like to believe that the BBC is sincere in its assurance, given in court, that it will incorporate the Coroner’s advice into its future procedures; but given that, since this summer, it has strained every nerve to prevent him from having the opportunity to deliver that advice, and even now has not ruled out judicially reviewing his decision, we have reason to doubt its seriousness.

“We wholeheartedly agree with the substance of the Coroner’s advice. In light of it, we would like to ask whether it is sensible to employ journalists who may be asked to go to dangerous countries on a regular basis using short-term contracts. In our view, this practice presents a clear possibility of the repetition of tragedies such as this.”

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