(CPJ/IFEX) – British journalist Jon Swain and American photographer Chip Hires, who had been hiding in the hills near Dili after their car was attacked by militia on the morning of 21 September 1999, have been rescued by Australian troops, according to the BBC quoting Brigadier David Richards, the British Forces Commander in East Timor. […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – British journalist Jon Swain and American photographer Chip
Hires, who had been hiding in the hills near Dili after their car was
attacked by militia on the morning of 21 September 1999, have been rescued
by Australian troops, according to the BBC quoting Brigadier David Richards,
the British Forces Commander in East Timor.
Swain, an award-winning correspondent for “The Sunday Times” of London, and
Hires, a photographer for the Paris-based GAMMA agency, were traveling with
a Timorese driver and a Timorese translator when militia ambushed their car
in the eastern town of Baucau, according to Agence France Presse and the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The militiamen pulled the two Timorese from the car and attacked them,
according to Richard Caseby of “The Sunday Times”. Their fate is unclear at
this time. Swain and Hires fled from the car into nearby bushes, where they
hid until troops arrived. Swain had called “The Sunday Times” on his cell
phone. Caseby said that United Nations ground troops and a helicopter had
been mobilised to rescue the journalists.
CPJ is deeply concerned about this gross violation of the basic right of
journalists to report the news.
