John Martinkus, a veteran freelance journalist, was released unharmed late yesterday, a day after he was taken hostage by four Sunni militants and ex-Iraqi army officers.

Mr Martinkus was filming a report for SBS’s Dateline program and was preparing to leave Iraq when he was detained about 5pm AEST on Saturday outside a hotel popular with foreign correspondents.

According to the Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer:

"In this particular case, the journalist went out to investigate a story, I understand, and went to a part of Baghdad that he was advised not to go to, but he went there anyway."

John Martinkus responds to Downer by saying:

"Well, that’s ridiculous, because I was in the street outside the only hotel in Baghdad occupied by journalists which is directly across the road from the Australian Embassy. I was nowhere dangerous, I was doing nothing dangerous, I was not putting myself at risk. I was grabbed by insurgents, who are very well organised and know exactly what they’re doing."

Downer, he only has the one response theme.
Victim-blaming and victim-discrediting.

He gets everything he needs from a book called :
"101 ways to blame the victim, negate responsibility and wait for Australia’s majority to lose interest."

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 19th, 2004 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Anti-war, Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Click to leave a comment.