The father of the Kiwi cameraman kidnapped in Gaza has appealed to his son's captors to see him not as a representative of America's foreign policy or the conservative Fox News, but as a compassionate human being.
Freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig - husband of broadcaster Anita McNaught - and Fox
News journalist Steve Centanni were abducted by masked gunmen from their TV van near the headquarters of Palestine's security services on Monday.
Top-level diplomatic efforts from New Zealand, Palestinian, British and American authorities have so far failed to reveal the culprits of the kidnapping.
Speaking yesterday from Napier, Olaf's father Roger, a Presbyterian minister, sent a message to his son's captors. "We want to say that there's more to be gained by releasing him unharmed than there is by holding on to him," he said.
"He is a person who would understand them and would want then to tell their story to the world. He is a man who understands the struggle for justice and that peace depends upon justice."
Reverend Wiig and his wife, Carol, have been staying with his 90-year-old mother in Hawke's Bay since flying home from London earlier in the week.
He said Fox News bosses had been supportive, although working for Fox may have put his son in even more danger.
"That's always a possibility. That really is. American foreign policy doesn't make friends around that part of the world," he said.
"New Zealand's foreign policy is one that he would feel more comfortable with."
McNaught is in Gaza using her local contacts to try to secure her husband's release and yesterday made an impassioned televised plea.
"He and his colleague, Steve, don't deserve this. They are good men, they are good men and they should be allowed to come home. Please let him come home. Please."
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said NZ diplomats were continuing to meet Palestinian officials in Gaza and Jerusalem and had made approaches to Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
