Posted on 08/27/2006 8:48:04 AM PDT by TaxachusettsMan
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Two FOX News journalists were released by their kidnappers Sunday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Steve Centanni, 60, and Olaf Wiig, 36, left Gaza and have since crossed into Israel after their release. The men left Gaza through the Erez border crossing.
The freeing of Centanni, a correspondent, and Wiig, a cameraman, ends the longest-running drama involving foreign hostages in Gaza.
The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.
Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said "I'm fine. I'm just so happy to be free."
He recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage.
"We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to lie face down with our handcuffs on," Centanni said.
"Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful."
Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.
"We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I'd say "What are crickets?" Alex.
I would have converted to save my life. Then I would have arranged a press conference from Israel upon release to see how many ways I could publicly insult Islam, and tell those who made me do it to go screw themselves.
Under those conditions? Is I was a news reporter and had been kidnapped? Not me, I'd "convert" in a second. I'd lie my ass off to these turds.
islam is a joke to me. I'd lie right back to them. I don't consider these devoids to be human and since there is no such thing as allah I'd have no problem pretending to embrace a cartoon.
This is all predicated on the news reporter scenerio. If islam had somehow taken over the US and the moslems put a gun to my head I'd probably do what you described that you would do. So, to make sure that never happens maybe we should decide that since islam is ant-American and in it's essence determined to overthrow the US we should outlaw it?
They'll never be able to go back to the ME, or be safe anywhere in the world. They converted, so to speak. In the twisted minds of Islam's adherents, if they repudiate their conversion, they're apostates and subject to execution for that repudiation of Islam.
God have mercy on their souls.
You think God wouldn't understand the human instinct for survival that He placed in us?
Steve Centanni now knows what many of us have known for quite a while...Allah = Satan.
At gunpoint it's quite understandable that Centanni 'converted' and I do understand the ongoing threat, but at this point I would have hoped Centanni would have the courage to say how much he and his family are ANGRY and OUTRAGED for being kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to convert to Islam.
Daniel Pearl learned about it too.
Islam...
Sanity
Lacking...
Allah
Mohammed
The islamic cult's MO for the past 1300 years: one way or another we will get you!
My thoughts exactly.
This episode just sounded like another leftist, terrorist love-in. Let's eat semores and sing Kumbaya.
This is as much of a non-story as the stupid Barbaro crap.
"You said it. Lies to fools are not what is in a mans heart. As an atheist, wouldn't you convert and then walk away saying "suckers"? If anything, these muzzies proved themselves fools by using a tactic they accuse the Crusaders of using.
"
Of course. I'd lie about something like that to save my life in an instant. These men weren't there trying to convert anyone to Christianity. They're news guys. Most of the famous Christian martyrs became so because they were spreading the Gospel and got killed for it.
If there were a Jesus, I'm quite sure he'd know what was in these guy's hearts. Who cares what they said. Even Peter denied Jesus three times after the crucifixion. Yet look what happened to him...
There's a lot of "look at how devout I am" posturing going on in these threads. Of course, none of those posting that stuff have a gun to their heads.
I knew it wouldn't take long for someone sittng on their sofa at home to second guess what these guys did to stay alive.
This may cause him problems with working in the middle east now. Once you repeat certain phrases related to Islam you are considered converted. If you denounce Islam after this the result is a death penalty.
Tolerance is a Western ideal, and the Islamists hate Western ideals.
Islam doesn't seek multiculturalism.
Their goal is monoculturalism: one world under Islam.
They are not at war for tolerance, but at war with tolerance.
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