Mada Center expresses its strong condemnation of BBC correspondent Alan Johnson kidnapping, by armed Palestinian group, in Gaza City today afternoon.
Mada Center demands the Palestinian Authority and government, to work actively for the immediate release of journalist Johnson, and prosecute those responsible for this crime, and bring them to trial.
It also confirms that the failure to prosecute those responsible for the abduction of journalists in Gaza Strip, in the past three years, the latest of which was the kidnapping of France Press photographer Jaime Razori, in the first of January2007, has encouraged this armed group to kidnap Johnson.
Mada Center consider this new crime, a blatant attack on freedom of opinion and expression, and a great disservice to the Palestinian people, which has long expressed his respect and gratitude, for journalists, especially foreign ones, for their effective role, in exposing Palestinian human rights violations, at the hands of Israeli occupation forces.
It is worth to mention, that six foreign journalists were kidnapped, last year in Gaza Strip, by armed Palestinian groups.

Ramallah
March 12,2007