How Twitter Saved a Captive Reporter

This is a remarkable story about how Twitter helped save a Japanese journalist from being held captive in Afhanistan. I had to pass this story on because it just goes to show how knowledge is power, especially when it comes to technology!


According to The Lede, blog for the NY Times by Robert Mackey:

A Japanese journalist who was released this week after being held captive in Afghanistan for five months explained on Tuesday how he had managed to post two updates on Twitter from the phone of one of his captors.

Kosuke Tsuneoka, who was freed on Saturday, told reporters in Tokyo that one of the militants had asked him to help set up his new mobile phone while he was still in captivity. Mr. Tsuneoka used the opportunity to post two brief messages from the phone to his Twitter account on Friday morning. The first update said that he was alive but in jail; the second added his location, the Afghan city of Kunduz, and the name of the commander who was holding him captive.

In an article published by PC World, Martyn Williams explained that the Twitter updates had initially caused confusion:

Tsuneoka hadn’t been heard from since disappearing on April 1, so the messages gave hope to family and friends, but were also greeted with skepticism by some who questioned aspects of them. Why were they sent in English when Tsuneoka had been using only Japanese on his Twitter account?

Mr. Williams reported that, on Tuesday, Mr. Tsuneoka explained how he had managed to convince his captors to give him access to the Internet.

It began three days earlier when one of his captors, whom he identified as a low-ranking soldier, was showing him a new cell phone. The phone, a Nokia N70, is advanced compared to what many are using in Afghanistan and the soldier didn’t know how to use it. “He asked me if I knew how to use it, so I had a look and explained it to him,” said Tsuneoka.

The soldier had heard of the Internet, but he didn’t know what it was. When Tsuneoka mentioned it to him, he was eager to see it, but the phone wasn’t signed up to receive the carrier’s GPRS data service for accessing the Internet. “I called the customer care number and activated the phone,” he said. Soon after he had the captor’s phone configured for Internet access.

Mari Yamaguchi of The Associated Press added:

A couple of days later, the militants — whom Tsuneoka said identified themselves as members of Hizb-e-Islami but posed as Taliban to the Japanese government — set him free in part because he is a Muslim. He had converted to Islam in 2000.

The Japanese government said it paid no ransom to free Tsuneoka. He said he believes that because the captors didn’t seem to be overjoyed at the time of his release or suggest they had received any cash.