The Gaza bureau chief for Abu Dhabi TV, Abdel-Salam Abu Askar, was kidnapped, interrogated and then released after several hours over the weekend. The network and his colleagues blamed Hamas, but Askar, who is Palestinian, curiously refuses to point fingers. Reuters writes:
The bureau chief of the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi TV in Gaza, abducted briefly by Palestinian gunmen on Friday, refused to identify his captors after the television station blamed Islamist group Hamas.
“Those who abducted me are known but I do not wish to say who they are on air,” Abdel-Salam Abu Askar told the television channel in a telephone interview after his release.
Abu Dhabi TV had blamed the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the abduction, a charge denied by a Hamas official in Gaza.
“The Hamas movement abducted the Abu Dhabi television bureau chief in Gaza,” an Abu Dhabi TV news anchor said earlier….
A colleague at the television’s Gaza bureau, who gave his name as Nael, told Reuters earlier that an “Executive Force jeep dropped Askar off in the street”. The Executive Force is a Hamas militia.
Nael said Abu Askar had called the office on his mobile telephone to report he had been stopped at a checkpoint set up by the Hamas militia which has been battling Fatah rivals this week.
A spokesman for Hamas denied involvement.
What do cowed Palestinian journalists know about Alan Johnston that isn’t being reported?
