Imtiaz Sooliman – Remembering imprisoned or persecuted journalists
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AI: Transcript ©
Indeed. Chris Ali, so that was beautiful. We have to get a little
bit more serious now, and journalists themselves often need
faith. On World Press Freedom Day, we've been remembering journalists
imprisoned, killed, persecuted for doing their jobs. Shiraz Mohammed,
a South African photojournalist, was abducted in 2017 when he
accompanied aid organization, gift of the givers on a trip to Syria
to discuss the latest we're joined by MTS, Suleiman, the founder of
the gift of the givers. He's on the line for us. He's in KwaZulu
Natal so we also talk about a gift of the givers involvement after
the flooding there. MTS, thank you for being with us. I know that you
were updating South Africa a few days ago, just remind us what
information we have about Shiraz, about his whereabouts, about his
safety.
Good evening, Francis, yes, we were following Shiraz days for two
years and three months, and we had many leads from many people. And
finally, we had a breakthrough, a great breakthrough, on April 12,
unfortunately, we were not following somebody we didn't know.
Send us a message in Arabic. I know about Shiraz. I know where he
is. I know he's alive, but you have to talk to somebody else, so
I get something in Arabic to speak to him. He gives us a message. He
says, The information I give you, you can't relate any of the
information my life was in danger, but from the information you can
make out with kiras, definitely alive. And then he says, He gives
us a couple of leads. He speaks to few people, and finally we get one
person, and he says, Yes, I can help you with Kiran. So we tell
him like you, everybody has told us the same thing over the last
two places, but they can help us, to tell us what all of them are
chances. So he says, No, I definitely can help you. So we
say, Can you give us a proof of live video? It says it will cost
you. Now recently, the rebel groups have decided they will not
be making any more proof of live videos, and if you insist on a
proof of live video, it will cost you a lot of money. And a few
months ago, we were told that if you want the video to some other
person, it will cost 300,000 US dollars. So we told them, keep the
video. We don't want it. So in this world, said it will cost you.
We said, Look, we're not interested. Fine, don't give us a
video. Then a few days later, it was Friday, the 26th of April,
10pm the video comes through, but she does in the video, and when
she does start speaking, he asks me, personally, he has the state
president, he has family and friends and anybody in the
international community to help him. He said, please come help
him. He is very afraid of his life where he is. There's intense
bombing. The Russians are bombing very close by, and is very afraid
for its own condition. Please, please come and help him. And he
got a board. It says, 13th of April. So this video is done on
the 30th of April, now falling from that story. What today? What
negotiations are taking place, what discussions are taking place,
what are the prospects of release?
Well, that's the next step. You know, that's the part that's very
worrying, because we now have to wait for them to get back to us,
and we're hoping they will. They did call us today, and I can't
give the divers a details yet, because I need to speak to the
family first, what we were told, and what my what my hospital is
telling me inside study is that what sharaz was saying in the
video is very, very true, that a bombing has intensified. It's
getting closer and it's getting more severe. Now, that's the part
and what the other things they told us, I can't release it today.
I need to talk to the family first, and I will be seeing them
tomorrow and Joanna, but thereafter, I will release what
they have told us is this very hard for you personally, MTS,
because we understand he was with gift of the givers going to Syria
and journalists in this country know you often take journalists on
these trips. It's an incredible way to access certain areas that
sometimes we can't access at all,
no, well, actually, he wasn't traveling with us at that point.
He went alone one of our volunteers. He had spoken to one
of our volunteers who lives in Turkey, and because he must have
trouble with us and to others, I don't even know sure as I've never
met him, so he had made arrangements for one of our
volunteers who lived in Turkey and who had good access to the
hospital. And I said, Okay, strangely enough, the time that we
went in was relatively the safest time possible. There was no
bombing, there was no fighting area, there was no shooting. It
was safe. So he said, This is the best time to come. You can take
pictures in hospital. The patients come from everywhere, from all
over the country. You can see them. You can go to the refugee
camps. And he did all that. He took a lot of footage, no issue
about bombing or shooting or getting killed. Nobody in the
world expected that somebody would abduct him. Nobody that has never
happened in the danger before. So like, I want his way back home to
the turkey border. That's what he got by two cars. Eight people got
out, put guns on him, put him in another car. They.
The other staff away from the hospital to another place 35
kilometers away. And then that staff got out and said, but they
freed them. He said, You can go. So he said, What about him? They
said, No, we just want to speak to him because we had there was some
misunderstanding. There was no misunderstanding. We don't know
what they were referring to. And then they said, but don't worry,
in 48 hours, we'll bring him back to your hospital. That was two
years and three months
ago. We are trying to assess press freedom. I mean, does this make
you circumspect since then? Has it made you circumspect about taking
journalists with you on trips? What do you think about the
general acceptance of media being alongside you on these sort of aid
operations. It's a journalist, bureaucrat. We go. In fact, we
never asked him. The journalists always ask us. The strange thing
is, the moment we announce and we should be trusted before that,
quite often, the journalists will call us different. Have you heard
this has happened near Jane everywhere, and you're going, we
like to join you. And you would find the leadership that comes
from the journals themselves. And then you would find 10 from 10
from the same media group. And then you would call the editor and
say, Look, I can't take care of your staff. You've got to choose
each other's coming. And in that way, the journals would come
about. And I would always brief them, as well as briefing my team,
especially going to a war zone. And I would say, look, I would
bring the most frightening picture. It's preferable that you
don't come. You can get killed, you can get maimed, anything can
happen to you. You can get terribly injured. Your family and
behind will never fall. And they would all say, without exception,
be journalists, be the medical guys. We coming. We are adults. We
know the risks. We know why we coming. We're coming to help
people, and the journalists will say we're coming to take the
story. So if this is the old initiative, this is the
profession. There are doctor you can get diseased in the hospital.
You go in a war zone, you can get bombed. There are military cars.
You can get shot. The policeman, you can get killed. So it's a
risk, and you're fine when you can get burnt. It comes with a job.
When you do the job, it's contradiction that something can
happen to me if I go into a dangerous place. So they all come
with their own I can't stop them as they want to come you know,
because it's part of the profession, it's part of the
growth. So I won't stop taking journals as long as they want to
come out. That's good to hear. So a lot of brave journalists out
there, and it's the same in your work, so relief workers as well,
heading into danger zones. Let's end off just with a quick summary,
because you are in KwaZulu Natal, that's why you're not in studio.
Tell us about your project there to build 80 homes, and try and
describe for people who aren't there, the aftermath of the
floodings.
The flooding was really huge.
Sorry. It destroyed bridges and many homes land from the fields.
In one area, the 80 homes that we talking about was in a place
called bottle brush, 80 homes got washed away in another place
called rabadach, the water came in at midnight, and the whole family
got washed away in restaurants, in the school, a house where seven of
the caretakers family was saying, All seven got killed because the
walls fell on them. But everywhere you went, you saw the severity of
the destruction. What was very, very unusual never before in the
history of South Africa as a storm killed 70 people. Secondly, never
the storm had such an extensive reach. No, it started from Central
Durban, raining here. Pine Town is a Pingle child, cross Chatsworth,
prospect,
prospecto Margate, a beach, Port shepston, and running into Port St
Johns, and that has never happened before. The other thing is, whilst
you're helping people, assisting them, over the first few days, we
thought we had reached everybody, but now we are finding that, you
know, we started those, amount of people that have been affected has
just been increasing in number. And we go to all the areas to
verify that the recipients are the people in need. When we get the
calls, I mean purchases alone, there's more than 2000 is
affected. In aminto, more than 600 some is affected. In Delavan,
we're finding more and more areas every day. People said, but nobody
came to us, so we said that we didn't know you offended, and
you're finding more and more the destruction and extent is really,
really huge, sure. So this is absolute devastation. Thank you so
much for that update and for your efforts trying to free a South
African journalist still being held captive in Syria. That was
the founder of gift of the givers, Dr Imtiaz Suleiman.