| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 min. 18 sec.) ; 170818767 bytes |
| Summary |
In a two month spree last year ISIS terrorists brutally executed five westerners after holding them captive for months and sometimes years. Three were American, two were British. But in the lead-up to those murders, 15 European hostages, who had been held in the same underground cell in Syria as the murdered men, were released and returned to their families. The difference? European governments routinely negotiate the payment of multi-million dollar ransoms to Islamist hostage-takers. The British and American governments will not.One of the 15 Europeans to make it home was Nicolas Henin. He is lucky to be alive - and, he adds, lucky to be French. The photo-journalist was kidnapped in Syria in 2013 and held for 10 months with some 20 other hostages. For a week he was handcuffed together with American reporter Jim Foley. Foley would become the first American to be beheaded, in August 2014.But by then, Henin and three fellow Frenchmen had been released. European governments routinely deny that they pay ransoms. But a French member of parliament is adamant: somebody paid."It's impossible to make somebody free without paying, if you are French. Perhaps if you are Australian or American or British, it's possible. But if you are French, no. We pay." - Alain Marsaud, Opposition member of French ParliamentHenin talks movingly of the mixture of fear and boredom that he and his fellow hostages endured. And of how Jim Foley wept with happiness when, after 13 months of silence, his captors finally asked him intimate questions, posed by his family, to prove he was alive. "It's not only a proof of life that you send to your relatives , it's also a proof that the outside world still exists, and knows that you are alive. The proof of life gives you hope." - Nicolas Henin, former IS hostageBut Jim Foley's employer describes how hope soon gave way to frustration. As more and more European hostages were released, his family realised that their own government was doing nothing. And when they began to raise money for a ransom themselves, they were warned by a White House official that they might be prosecuted. Now Foley and three other American hostages are dead."The US and UK governments need to reflect on the outcome and not just the simple policy that they can try to feel proud of. The outcome here was not good, and it needs to be better." - Philip Balboni, founder and CEO, Global Post |
| Notes |
Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2015-06-09 at 20:00:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Beheading.
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Hostage negotiations -- Decision making.
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Hostages -- Family relationships.
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Hostages -- Psychology.
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Ransom.
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IS (Organization)
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United States.
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Middle East.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Holmes, Jonathan, reporter
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Balboni, Philip, contributor
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Callimachi, Rukmini, contributor
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Cameron, David, contributor
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Foley, Diane, contributor
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Henin, Nicolas, contributor
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Kaleva, Atte, contributor
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Kaleva, Leila, contributor
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Marsaud, Alain, contributor
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Mueller, Carl, contributor
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Wright Foley, James, contributor
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