Maintaining pressure
| 13:32 UK time, Wednesday, 25 April 2007
A big part of our efforts to maintain the pressure for the release of Alan Johnston, the Â鶹Éç correspondent who disappeared in Gaza six weeks ago, has been to keep the issue in the public eye. We've had massive support in this regard from the international media community - and especially from the Palestinian journalists in Gaza itself and in the West Bank, who have mounted almost daily demonstrations to call for Alan's freedom.
Today the - this time to Erez, the main crossing point between Gaza and Israel. On the other side of the crossing were assembled the massed ranks of the international media - rallied by the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem for their own major demonstration in support of Alan.
For most of them, Erez is now the furthest they feel they can safely venture since the abduction - a reminder of the unique and courageous nature of Alan Johnston's work: the only foreign correspondent permanently based in Gaza, determined to bring the story of life there to there to the outside world.
It was a strange occasion in some ways - with one group of journalists filming another group of journalists demonstrating their support for Alan and also publicly reaffirming the importance of the Gaza story and their ability to report it. All the talk was of the rumours and speculation that have swirled around Gaza and elsewhere since the first day of what is now a 45-day ordeal.
It's the sort of talk that fills the vaccuum left by a lack of any hard information, of which there has been next to none. On the Palestinian side of Erez, I told the journalists that I had met members of Alan's family in the UK, and they were very aware of, and deeply grateful for, the huge efforts that they had made on Alan's behalf.
The response was immediate. "You tell them," they said, "that we regard Alan as a part of our family too. And we won't rest until he's released."
Their support, and that of the international media loudly sending the same message from their demonstration a few hundred yards away on the other side, has heartened and strengthened Alan's friends and family in these last long weeks - proof, if proof were needed, that even journalists have a heart.
NB. If you want to show your support for Alan, you can join the 52,000 people . If you have a blog or run a website, you can add this button (instructions here). Thank you.
