Alan Johnston

Alan Johnston was born in Tanzania in 1962, and was raised in different parts of Africa, and Scotland. He studied English and Politics at the University of Dundee, and went on to complete a post graduate diploma in Journalism Studies at the University of Wales.
Alan began work in British provincial newspapers, but joined the BBC World Service in 1991. After a period in the BBC's London headquarters he was appointed to be its Central Asia Correspondent. This was a post based in Tashkent, but involved reporting on the newly emerging post-Soviet Muslim states that stretched from the Caspian Sea to Mongolia. During this period Alan covered the intensifying repression in countries like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and the civil war in Tajikistan. He also reported on the battle for Grozny in the Chechen war in 1995.
After another spell in London, Alan was sent to Afghanistan, and became the BBC's Kabul correspondent in 1997. The city had just fallen to the Taleban, and throughout the following year Alan reported on the movement's efforts to impose its austere regime on the capital, and capture the rest of the country.
A period in London was followed by a posting to the Gaza Strip. For three years Alan was the only foreign correspondent living in the territory. Among the events he covered in that time were the death of Yasser Arafat, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the continual confrontation between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army, and the rise of the Hamas movement. Three weeks before the end of his assignment, Alan was kidnapped by a jihadi organisation called the Army of Islam. The BBC led a major international campaign for his release, and he was eventually freed unharmed after a-hundred-and-fourteen days in captivity.
Alan is currently working in the BBC World Service's London headquarters, focusing largely on events in South Asia, and presenting the "From Our Own Correspondent" radio programme. He has won several awards, and published a book of his collected journalism.