Speaking out against the silence

Just two weeks before his contract was due to end, BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza and held for almost four months by a Jihadi organisation called the Army of Islam.

The BBC ran an extensive international campaign to try to secure his release, and with the help of Hamas officials, Johnston was eventually freed unharmed on July 4 2007.

Johnston was the only Western reporter permanently based in Gaza and had been working there for three years when he went missing. He reported for all BBC radio and television during the second Palestinian Intifada.

Johnston came to DCU on Monday night to discuss his 20-year career as a BBC foreign correspondent, which includes other events like the breakdown of the Soviet Union and reporting the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan.

Chairing last night’s talk was another public figure of significant distinction. Raped and abused in his early teens by one of Ireland’s most notorious paedophiles, Colm O’Gorman was one of the first to draw attention to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

O’Gorman is one of Ireland’s most outspoken campaigners against religious child sex abuse and set up the organisation One in Four, which helps victims and investigates the deceitful cover-up.

He has moved on again and is now the executive director of Amnesty Ireland. O’Gorman welcomed Johnston to DCU and the risks that he has taken during his career but questioned what motivates him to risk his life.

“Alan put himself in places of significant risk - he was the only Western journalist in Gaza for a reason. There were 71 journalists killed in 2009, and that’s the highest number killed in a last few years,” said O’Gorman.

“Journalists often face grave violations of their human rights but also the suppression of their freedom of expression. We all should be hugely concerned about this because we must know what is going on in the world and journalists are central to this.

“Understanding the experiences of a journalist who has really been at the edge of this suppression is fascinating. Correspondents, like Alan, work in the interests of exposing truth but at the same time, they go beyond the realms of safety,” he added.

O’Gorman was himself in the media spotlight again last week following the two-day summit in Rome last week between 24 Irish bishops and Pope Benedict.

After the summit, the Vatican released a statement condemning Ireland’s history of child sexual abuse as a “heinous crime”. However, the Pope did not apologise, nor take any responsibility for what happened.

The whole meeting has been described as a PR disaster and a very cynical exercise. O’Gorman asserts that if the “Pope was serious about dealing with child sex abuse in Ireland, he doesn’t need to sit down with 24 bishops from Ireland.”

“I can’t believe that the Vatican is so blind to recognise how flawed that meeting looks to the Irish public. That congregation was completely unaware of how meaningless and pointless a public relations approach appears.

“The Pope was the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 20 years. That department is responsible for the enforcement of Church law and dogma on a global level.

“As head of that department, he was personally responsible for the management of child sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses across the world. For 20 years, his department oversaw a cover-up,” said O’Gorman.

It took O’Gorman 14 years to report his own abuse, but when he did, other victims came forward in following months.

He later discovered that the Church had received numerous complaints about his abuser, Father Sean Fortune.

It later emerged that the Catholic Church may have known that Fortune had a history of abusing boys before being ordained. Eventually, he was given a trial date in 1999, facing 66 charges of abusing children.

Eleven days into the trial, he killed himself with whiskey and prescription drugs. O’Gorman continued his legal battle and successfully sued the Catholic Church, receiving a payment of €300,000.

His case was settled in the High Court and was based on negligence against the Fortune’s Diocese of Ferns in Wexford. O’Gorman also got a historic, unreserved public apology in court.

Last week, many victims of clerical abuse demanded accountability and an apology from Pope Benedict. However, O’Gorman says his healing and happiness is “not dependant on any apology from the Pope.”

“I’m not remotely interested in meeting the Pope for some personal time - I don’t need his apology. This issue is about justice, accountability, responsibility and justice for the rights of children. I’m not interested in meeting him”.

“The reason why I want the Pope to acknowledge and accept responsibility for what happened is to prevent anything like this ever happening again. The Vatican needs to acknowledge the cover-up - every bishop is answerable only to the Vatican.”