Alan Johnston
Correspondent, BBC World Service

Alan Johnston joined the BBC in 1991 as a sub-editor in the BBC World Service Newsroom before becoming the BBC’s correspondent in Tashkent from 1993-95. In 1997, he began a year-long spell as the BBC’s Kabul correspondent at the time when the Taliban movement was fighting to take complete control of Afghanistan. He returned to London and the BBC World Service to be a programme editor of “The World Today” before becoming a general reporter in the BBC World Service Newsroom. Mr. Johnston started a three-year posting to Gaza as BBC correspondent there in April 2004. Just two weeks before his contract was due to end, he was kidnapped and held for nearly four months by a Jihadi organisation. The BBC mounted a major international campaign to try to secure his release, and he was eventually freed unharmed on 4 July 2007.