{"id":3414,"date":"2025-10-07T08:28:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T21:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/?p=3414"},"modified":"2025-10-07T08:31:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T21:31:48","slug":"the-correspondent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/the-correspondent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Correspondent, Peter Greste, Australia, 2017\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"en-GB\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3419\" src=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Correspondent.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Correspondent.jpeg 474w, https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Correspondent-201x300.jpeg 201w, https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Correspondent-181x270.jpeg 181w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">In 2017, Peter Greste published <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><i>The First Casualty<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">; in 2025, with the successful launch of the film <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><i>The Correspondent<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">, based on <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><i>The First Casualty<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">, he republished his book (with many updates) as <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><i>The Correspondent<\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">A dual-nationality holder \u2013 Australian and Latvian &#8211; Greste, a journalist and foreign correspondent since the early 1990s, has worked in some of the most dangerous places on Earth. In 2011 he left the BBC where he had been working for many years and became a correspondent for Al Jazeera English in Africa. In December 2013 he was sent to Cairo to report on the unrest <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">that had followed<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> an unexpected change of government. He was simply filling in for another journalist and expected to be back in Africa shortly after Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3416\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3416\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-3416 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Peter-Greste-e1759445037881.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3416\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Greste (uqp.com.au)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">This did not happen. <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">Greste, <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">together<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> with his two Al Jazeera colleagues, was arrested and accused of associating with the Muslim Brotherhood (a terrorist association, according to the Egyptian government) and was thrown into a series of mediaeval prisons. When the trial <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">finally<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> eventuated Greste expected that he and his two companions would be released with an apology, but <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">by this time the<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> truth ha<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">d<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> been well and truly buried, <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">and<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"> all three were sentenced to several years in <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">prison<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">. That Greste was finally released after more than a year was thanks to his own persistence and the persistence of the many people who were helping him.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3417\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3417\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3417\" src=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/prison.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/prison.jpeg 474w, https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/prison-300x168.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Greste in prison (www.news.com.au)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">The story of Greste\u2019s arrest and imprisonment is the central story in <\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><i>The Correspondent <\/i><\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">(and the resulting film)<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">, but it is Greste\u2019s descriptions of his work in places like Africa and Afghanistan that place the book on a completely different level. It is in these many pages of description and analysis that the reader becomes frighteningly aware of the important part played by journalists and the reason so many are presently being imprisoned (or killed). There are too many governments that do not want the truth to be told. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">A book that can definitely be read, and pondered over, more than once. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2017, Peter Greste published The First Casualty; in 2025, with the successful launch of the film The Correspondent, based on The First Casualty, he republished his book (with many updates) as The Correspondent. A dual-nationality holder \u2013 Australian and Latvian &#8211; Greste, a journalist and foreign correspondent since the early 1990s, has worked in &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"readmore-btn\" href=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/the-correspondent\/\">+<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3420,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414\/revisions\/3420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}