Kidnapping of David Rohde
Encyclopedia
New York Times journalist David Stephenson Rohde and two associates were kidnapped by members of the Taliban in November 2008. Rohde was in Afghanistan doing research for a book. After being held captive for eight months, in June 2009, Rohde and one of his associates escaped and made their way to safety.
During his captivity, Rohde's colleagues at The New York Times appealed to other members of the news media not to publish any stories reporting on the abduction. Their intentions in doing so were to maximize Rohde's chances for survival and/or release.
while Rohde was researching a book about the history of United States' involvement in the country. He had been invited to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province near Kabul. The interview had been arranged by Ludin, but the two men never made it to their destination; the Taliban commander called The New York Times to report that they had not arrived. The kidnappers initially insisted on no publicity and issued a series of difficult and unclear demands, including the release of Taliban prisoners being held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and the payment of ransoms of tens of millions of dollars. They later released at least two videos showing Rohde, which were sent to Western news outlets and the New York Times. The kidnappers also sent letters and audiotapes as well as making contact by telephone and via the Red Cross.
It is believed that Rohde and his colleagues were being held by the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani
, a warlord and former Mujahideen
fighter against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
in the 1980s. Haqqani has been accused by the US of ordering beheadings and suicide bombings, and has a $5-million bounty on his head. The same network is believed to have been responsible for the kidnapping of the Channel 4
reporter Sean Langan
in 2008. The Haqqani network
is closely allied with the Taliban and shares many of its values.
, who was now the US envoy to South Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor Condoleezza Rice
were also involved in the efforts to liberate Rohde and his colleagues. Contact was established with the kidnappers within days of the men's disappearance. Negotiations proved slow and inconclusive, but the captors reportedly signaled early on that they would not kill Rohde, though the captives themselves were regularly threatened with death.
.jpg)
At some point after their abduction, the men were transferred across the border to a Taliban compound near Miranshah
in the North Waziristan
region of Pakistan. After seven months in captivity, Rohde and Ludin managed to escape during the night on June 19, 2009, an effort which Rohde later called in a byline for The Week as "last ditch" and "foolhardy", despite its success. According to Ludin, they sneaked past Taliban guards after tiring out the men with repeated games of checkers. When the guards had fallen asleep, according to Rohde, they left separately under the guise of using the bathroom. The men escaped by climbing over the ten-foot wall of the compound where they were being held. Using a length of old rope Rohde had acquired two weeks prior they lowered themselves out of a window. The rope was several feet short of the ground, forcing the men to drop the last stage; Ludin injured his foot in the fall, though Rohde was unhurt. Mangal did not escape with the other two men. Rohde said that he and Ludin chose not to let Mangal in on the escape plans on fears that Mangal would tell the guards. He and Ludin feared that Mangal was cooperating with the Taliban. As it turns out, Mangal was cooperating only to ensure his own safety. He escaped on July 27, 2009.
The escapees made contact with a scout from the Pakistan Army
, narrowly escaping being fatally mistaken for Taliban fighters, and were taken to a Frontier Corps
post, from where they were flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Rohde was reported to have been flown to Dubai
to be reunited with his family. According to Rohde's family, "no ransom money was paid and no Taliban or other prisoners were released." They issued a statement declaring that it was "hard to describe the enormous relief we felt at hearing the news of David and Tahir's escape and knowing he is safe. Every day, during these past seven months, we have hoped and prayed for this moment."
. A few outlets did briefly report the news. It was first reported by Pajhwok Afghan News
in November 2008, citing two Afghan officials on the day after the abduction. Al Jazeera
and the Italian news agency Adnkronos
initially reported the kidnapping, as did the right-wing blogs Little Green Footballs
, The Jawa Report
and Dan Cleary, Political Insomniac. In March 2009 Michael Yon
"just did a small item because it was pretty much out there." Other bloggers and agencies were contacted by the Times and agreed to take their pieces down. Yon kept information subsequent to his initial report quiet "upon request from related parties." Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher
, described it as "the most amazing press blackout on a major event that I have ever seen." The Times's executive editor, Bill Keller
, stated: "From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David’s family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several government and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger. We decided to respect that advice ... and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."
Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor noted that "the way the Times handled Rohde’s case reflects the set of informal rules the press is developing to deal with new kinds of conflict, and the new kinds of reporting that they require." The kidnappings in 2008 of the CBC News
reporter Mellissa Fung
in Afghanistan and Jill Carroll
of the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq in 2006 had been tackled in a similar way, with the media observing blackouts in those case as well (though they were shorter-lived, and in Carroll's case, major news outlets said they could not continue to sit on the story). Murphy nonetheless observed that the question of "whether the press is guilty of a double standard – protecting its own while reporting on other kidnapping cases" was likely to become "the subject of extended debate". Bob Steele, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute
, comments:
Bill Keller of the Times told the Washington Post that "there was a pretty firm consensus" among those whom he had consulted "that you really amp up the danger when you go public ... It makes us cringe to sit on a news story," but when a person's life was at stake, "the freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish."
After David Rohde escaped, some people involved, including David himself, indicated that the reason the Times imposed a media blackout was not for Rohde's safety, but to decrease his ransom. An anonymous source quoted by New York Magazine claims that experts involved in the kidnapping never believed that David's life was in danger.
also participated in the media blackout. Prior to any references to the kidnapping being added to Rohde's article in Wikipedia, a Times reporter, Michael Moss, made changes to the article to emphasize the work that Rohde had done, in such a way that Rohde would be seen by his captors as being sympathetic to Muslims. Subsequently, reports of the kidnapping, which began on the following day, were removed by Michael Moss and some Wikipedia administrators. The Times also approached Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales
for assistance in enforcing the media blackout. Wales turned to "trusted" Wikipedia administrators to repeatedly edit the article to remove all references to the kidnapping, and prevent already published information from being further disseminated.
In response to criticism over the actions taken, Wales stated that no Wikipedia policies were broken, and that relevant processes were followed. Peter Sussman of the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics committee likened the description of Wales involvement to that of a newspaper editor, and cautioned that an editorial role in censorship requires a degree of disclosure.
One rationale cited by Wales, in complying with the Times's request, was the fact that the media blackout of the story, among major western/English-language news services at least, was relatively effective: "We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source. I would have had a really hard time with it if it had." He praised the assistance provided by Wikipedia editors: "I'm really proud of the Wikipedians who made this happen, maybe saved his life."
During his captivity, Rohde's colleagues at The New York Times appealed to other members of the news media not to publish any stories reporting on the abduction. Their intentions in doing so were to maximize Rohde's chances for survival and/or release.
Abduction
On November 10, 2008, Rohde, his translator, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah "Asad" Mangal, were abducted outside KabulKabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
while Rohde was researching a book about the history of United States' involvement in the country. He had been invited to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province near Kabul. The interview had been arranged by Ludin, but the two men never made it to their destination; the Taliban commander called The New York Times to report that they had not arrived. The kidnappers initially insisted on no publicity and issued a series of difficult and unclear demands, including the release of Taliban prisoners being held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and the payment of ransoms of tens of millions of dollars. They later released at least two videos showing Rohde, which were sent to Western news outlets and the New York Times. The kidnappers also sent letters and audiotapes as well as making contact by telephone and via the Red Cross.
It is believed that Rohde and his colleagues were being held by the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani
Jalaluddin Haqqani
Mawlawi Jalaluddin Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani network, an insurgent group fighting against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. He also fought in the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan, including in the Operation Magistral...
, a warlord and former Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
fighter against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
in the 1980s. Haqqani has been accused by the US of ordering beheadings and suicide bombings, and has a $5-million bounty on his head. The same network is believed to have been responsible for the kidnapping of the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
reporter Sean Langan
Sean Langan
Sean Langan is a British journalist and documentary film-maker. Langan works in dangerous and volatile situations; including environments noted for war, conflict and civil unrest. In 2008 he was kidnapped along with his translator while filming in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region...
in 2008. The Haqqani network
Haqqani network
The Haqqani Network is an insurgent group fighting against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. Originating from Afghanistan during the mid-1970s, it was nurtured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence during the 1980s Soviet war in...
is closely allied with the Taliban and shares many of its values.
Response
A coalition of Times staff, private security contractors assisting Rohde's family and US officials worked behind the scenes to secure the men's release, enlisting the help of local Afghan journalists to lobby the Taliban. Richard HolbrookeRichard Holbrooke
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke was an American diplomat, magazine editor, author, professor, Peace Corps official, and investment banker....
, who was now the US envoy to South Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
were also involved in the efforts to liberate Rohde and his colleagues. Contact was established with the kidnappers within days of the men's disappearance. Negotiations proved slow and inconclusive, but the captors reportedly signaled early on that they would not kill Rohde, though the captives themselves were regularly threatened with death.
Escape
Miranshah
Miranshah is the capital or headquarters of North Waziristan in Pakistan. It is the site of a town, which has s small airfield that was built by the British for World War II. The area in which Miranshah sits is extremely dangerous mainly due to Taliban activities and U.S. Drone...
in the North Waziristan
North Waziristan
North Waziristan is the northern part of Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering . Waziristan comprises the area west and south-west of Peshawar between the Tochi river to the north and the Gomal river to the south, forming part of Pakistan's...
region of Pakistan. After seven months in captivity, Rohde and Ludin managed to escape during the night on June 19, 2009, an effort which Rohde later called in a byline for The Week as "last ditch" and "foolhardy", despite its success. According to Ludin, they sneaked past Taliban guards after tiring out the men with repeated games of checkers. When the guards had fallen asleep, according to Rohde, they left separately under the guise of using the bathroom. The men escaped by climbing over the ten-foot wall of the compound where they were being held. Using a length of old rope Rohde had acquired two weeks prior they lowered themselves out of a window. The rope was several feet short of the ground, forcing the men to drop the last stage; Ludin injured his foot in the fall, though Rohde was unhurt. Mangal did not escape with the other two men. Rohde said that he and Ludin chose not to let Mangal in on the escape plans on fears that Mangal would tell the guards. He and Ludin feared that Mangal was cooperating with the Taliban. As it turns out, Mangal was cooperating only to ensure his own safety. He escaped on July 27, 2009.
The escapees made contact with a scout from the Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...
, narrowly escaping being fatally mistaken for Taliban fighters, and were taken to a Frontier Corps
Frontier Corps
The Frontier Corps is a federally-controlled paramilitary force of Pakistan, recruited mostly from the tribal areas along the western borders and led by officers from the Pakistan Army...
post, from where they were flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Rohde was reported to have been flown to Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
to be reunited with his family. According to Rohde's family, "no ransom money was paid and no Taliban or other prisoners were released." They issued a statement declaring that it was "hard to describe the enormous relief we felt at hearing the news of David and Tahir's escape and knowing he is safe. Every day, during these past seven months, we have hoped and prayed for this moment."
Media blackout
Rohde's kidnapping was kept quiet by much of the world's media following a request from the New York Times not to publicize the abduction. At least 40 news agencies were reported to know about the kidnapping, but observed the media blackoutMedia blackout
Media blackout refers to the censorship of news related to a certain topic, particularly in mass media, for any reason. A media blackout may be voluntary, or may in some countries be enforced by the government or state. The latter case is controversial in peacetime, as some regard it as a human...
. A few outlets did briefly report the news. It was first reported by Pajhwok Afghan News
Pajhwok Afghan News
Pajhwok Afghan News is a news agency established in March 2004 in Kabul, Afghanistan by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. It is Afghanistan's largest independent news service, providing broad-based coverage of news in English, Pashto and Dari...
in November 2008, citing two Afghan officials on the day after the abduction. Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
and the Italian news agency Adnkronos
Adnkronos
-History:It was established in 1963 by a merger of two agencies, Kronos and Agenzia Di Notizie .The agency is owned by Giuseppe Marra Communications....
initially reported the kidnapping, as did the right-wing blogs Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs is an American political blog run by web designer Charles Johnson.Media observers in the United States long described the site as "right wing", but since 2007, the site's emphasis has changed, such that "LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many...
, The Jawa Report
Jawa Report
The Jawa Report is a blog and forum about terrorism committed by Islamists.The Boston Globe describes it as a "popular" website "that monitors terrorism investigations." The New York Times reports that its volunteers "research Web sites they believe are tied to Al-Qaeda or other militant groups,...
and Dan Cleary, Political Insomniac. In March 2009 Michael Yon
Michael Yon
Michael Yon is an American writer and photographer. He served in the Special Forces in the early-1980s, and he became a general freelance writer in the mid-1990s. He focused on military writing after the invasion of Iraq...
"just did a small item because it was pretty much out there." Other bloggers and agencies were contacted by the Times and agreed to take their pieces down. Yon kept information subsequent to his initial report quiet "upon request from related parties." Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher
Editor & Publisher
Editor & Publisher is a monthly magazine covering the North American newspaper industry. It is based in New York City. E&P calls itself "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry" and describes itself on its website as "the authoritative journal covering all aspects of the North...
, described it as "the most amazing press blackout on a major event that I have ever seen." The Times's executive editor, Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
, stated: "From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David’s family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several government and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger. We decided to respect that advice ... and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."
Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor noted that "the way the Times handled Rohde’s case reflects the set of informal rules the press is developing to deal with new kinds of conflict, and the new kinds of reporting that they require." The kidnappings in 2008 of the CBC News
CBC News
CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...
reporter Mellissa Fung
Mellissa Fung
Mellissa Fung is a Canadian journalist with CBC News, appearing regularly as a field correspondent on The National.- Education and career :...
in Afghanistan and Jill Carroll
Jill Carroll
Jill Carroll is an American former journalist who was kidnapped and ultimately released in Iraq. Carroll was a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor at the time of her kidnapping...
of the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq in 2006 had been tackled in a similar way, with the media observing blackouts in those case as well (though they were shorter-lived, and in Carroll's case, major news outlets said they could not continue to sit on the story). Murphy nonetheless observed that the question of "whether the press is guilty of a double standard – protecting its own while reporting on other kidnapping cases" was likely to become "the subject of extended debate". Bob Steele, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute
Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute is a non-profit school for journalism located in St. Petersburg, Florida. The school's mission statement says that "The Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. It promotes excellence and integrity in the practice of...
, comments:
Bill Keller of the Times told the Washington Post that "there was a pretty firm consensus" among those whom he had consulted "that you really amp up the danger when you go public ... It makes us cringe to sit on a news story," but when a person's life was at stake, "the freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish."
After David Rohde escaped, some people involved, including David himself, indicated that the reason the Times imposed a media blackout was not for Rohde's safety, but to decrease his ransom. An anonymous source quoted by New York Magazine claims that experts involved in the kidnapping never believed that David's life was in danger.
Role of Wikipedia
WikipediaWikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
also participated in the media blackout. Prior to any references to the kidnapping being added to Rohde's article in Wikipedia, a Times reporter, Michael Moss, made changes to the article to emphasize the work that Rohde had done, in such a way that Rohde would be seen by his captors as being sympathetic to Muslims. Subsequently, reports of the kidnapping, which began on the following day, were removed by Michael Moss and some Wikipedia administrators. The Times also approached Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
for assistance in enforcing the media blackout. Wales turned to "trusted" Wikipedia administrators to repeatedly edit the article to remove all references to the kidnapping, and prevent already published information from being further disseminated.
In response to criticism over the actions taken, Wales stated that no Wikipedia policies were broken, and that relevant processes were followed. Peter Sussman of the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics committee likened the description of Wales involvement to that of a newspaper editor, and cautioned that an editorial role in censorship requires a degree of disclosure.
One rationale cited by Wales, in complying with the Times's request, was the fact that the media blackout of the story, among major western/English-language news services at least, was relatively effective: "We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source. I would have had a really hard time with it if it had." He praised the assistance provided by Wikipedia editors: "I'm really proud of the Wikipedians who made this happen, maybe saved his life."
External links
- The moral quandary of involving Wikipedia in online 'censorship' at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Held by The Taliban: A Reporting Trip Becomes a Kidnapping - Interactive feature from The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...