Andy McCarthy, National Review Online:

At the press conference, Steve Centanni stated that he and Olaf Wiig "were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint."

Will Reuters, which thought the "conversion" was newsworthy, report on that?

Or will we get the usual slew of "mainstream" Muslim experts who tell us that in Islam "there is no compulsion in religion," and that jihad is "the inner struggle against sin"?

Posted at 10:55 AM [Eastern Time, I believe]

Reuters, 2:08 PM, BST [9:08 AM Eastern Time, I believe]:

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Militants in the Palestinian Gaza Strip freed two kidnapped journalists from the American Fox News Channel on Sunday after forcing them at gunpoint to say in a videotape they had converted to Islam.

Correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, looked happy but tired after two weeks of captivity in the Palestinian coastal strip.

A previously unknown group called the Holy Jihad Brigades had made a sweeping demand for the United States to free Muslim prisoners in exchange for the release of the men.

"I am really fine, healthy, in good shape and so happy to be free," Centanni told the Fox Channel.

He said that he and Wiig had been forced at gunpoint to say they were converting to Islam.

"I'm thinking: 'Oh God, a remote warehouse with a big noisy generator, they could simply shoot me in the head and nobody would hear it'," Centanni said.

"I have the highest respect for Islam ... 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."

...A statement from the captors before the men were freed had said the two journalists had to choose either Islam, a tax imposed on non-Muslims to be paid to a Muslim ruler, or war.

"They chose Islam, and that is a gift God gives those whom he chooses," the statement said.

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Fortunately for McCarthy he's from the Podhoretzian school of punditry (e.g., "Would we be better off in Iraq if we massacred all adult male Sunnis?  Just askin'!") and technically didn't accuse Reuters of anything.  If you don't know anything it's a good idea to phrase your arguments in such a way that you can always deny you were saying anything at all.

 

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