By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KABUL, Afghanistan – Melissa Fung, a 35 year old reporter for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), was released after being held hostage for nearly four weeks on Saturday.

Fung was on her way to a U.N. refugee camp in outer Kabul when she was kidnapped and forced to the western part of Afghanistan.  CBC News publisher John Cruickshank said in a statement, “She had been in a refugee camp.  She’d been doing some reporting on conditions there and on difficulties in Kabul, and essentially, as she left the camp, within a couple of blocks of a police station, they pulled up in a van, jumped out and overpowered her and took her.”

Fung was held in the region of Wardak, located 50 kilometers southwest of Kabul, and controlled by the Taliban.  Fung stated that she was held in a small “cave.”  It was so small that she could barely stand.  She said that they dug a small hole which turned into a tunnel, then opened to a room.  She said that her abductors never mistreated her except for when they chained her.  For the first three weeks of being kidnapped, they guarded her constantly, but during the last week, they chained her arms and legs and then abandoned her.

Susan Ormiston of CBC stated that they received a threatening phone call saying that Fung would be killed if a ransom was not paid or if people in police custody were harmed.  Fung was rescued by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an Afghan intelligence agency.  NDS arrested three people who were involved in the kidnapping, but seemed to only be middle men.  The agency is still looking for others.

The identity of the kidnappers is still unknown.  Fung said the man who guarded her went by the name “Khaled.”  However, she indicated that she didn’t believe it was his real name.  Fung said, “His friends called him ‘Hezbollah.'”

Hezbollah is a radical Shia group based out of Lebanon and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.  It has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts, including car bombs, roadside bombs, rockets, booby-traps and suicide attacks.

Despite Fung’s successful release with the help of the Afghan government, kidnappings of Western journalists are on the rise.  Reporters Without Borders said, “We are nonetheless very worried by the recent kidnappings of journalists in Afghanistan, where the security situation has deteriorated dangerously.”

For more information, please see:

CBC News – Kidnapped CBC Journalist Chained in Tiny Chamber Before Release – 9 November 2008

CNN – Freed Canadian Reporter:  I Was Kept in a Cave – 9 November 2008

Reporters Without Borders – Canadian Reporter Freed After Being Held Hostage for 28 Days – 9 November 2008