For tomorrow(1020)Please cooperate to protect our Japanese friends！

by Toshiya MORITA(20150123 01:00)

Dear my friends；

A journalist, one of my friend wrote a comment about incident by which Japanese were kidnaped.
Please spread this comment by all means.

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Statement on IS (Islamic State) Japanese Hostage Incident

Japan Visual Journalist Association (JVJA) is an organization of photojournalists and video journalists.
We have documented how the attacks by the American and British-led coalition forces brought destruction and suffering to the Iraqi people during the Iraq War and the occupation that followed. We reported what we documented through media including television and newspapers. We have also interviewed civilians who came under Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Palestine and Gaza, also reporting on television and in newspapers.
Our coverage has never supported the attacks by the United States and Israel. This is because as journalists, we cover events as they happen where they happen, and we thus understand the realities of people living in war conditions. Through our reporting, we have been criticizing all forms of violence. We continued to criticize the Japanese government’s war policies. We have also strongly criticized Israel’s attacks on Gaza. We are also using our reporting to criticize the Abe administration’s current policies that affirm war.
While covering the situation on-site, we met Kenji Goto, one of the hostages taken by IS (Islamic State). Kenji Goto is also one of the few journalists who has reported on television and through the internet on the suffering of civilians in war-torn Iraq and Syria. We have not had any direct interactions with Haruna Yukawa, but according to reports, it seems he entered IS (Islamic State) from of his own personal interest.
We stand by the principles of journalism that violence does not resolve problems. This is because we have continued to see for ourselves the ravages of areas where the use of arms and force has not solved anything. We believe that communication, including negotiation, is the way to resolve problems.
We appeal to everyone of IS (Islamic State). We appeal to you not to kill the two Japanese, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. Human life is priceless and cannot be traded for anything else.
We also appeal to the government of Japan. We demand that the Japanese government refrains from becoming complicit in military intervention in the Middle East by opposing it and choosing diplomatic means to find solutions.

January 20, 2015
 Japan Visual Journalist Association
 http://www.jvja.net
 e-mail: office@jvja.net

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This is the news that NHK broadcast.

Journalists in Japan urge release of 2 hostages
Jan. 22, 2015 - Updated 20:09 UTC+9

An organization of freelance journalists in Japan is calling on Islamic State militants to immediately release two Japanese nationals believed to be held by the group.
The statement says one of the hostages, Kenji Goto, is a freelance journalist who reported on the suffering war causes to civilians.

The Japan Visual Journalists Association, which is open to freelance photo journalists and video journalists, has published a statement in Arabic on the Internet.
Photo journalist Naomi Toyoda prepared the statement with the help of acquaintances from the Muslim world. Toyoda has more than 30 years of experience in covering conflicts, mainly in the Middle East. He also knows Goto.

The statement says that Japanese journalists appeal to the Islamic State militant group not to kill the 2 hostages, Goto and Haruna Yukawa, stressing that human life is priceless and cannot be traded for anything else.
The statement, also published in Japanese and English, describes Goto as one of the few journalists who have reported on the suffering of civilians in war-torn Iraq and Syria.

People affiliated with the association have reposted the statement on their Facebook pages in order to spread the word to friends, including journalists and guides in Syria.
The Arabic version Toyoda posted has been shared nearly 400 times.
Toyoda says that he has no direct channel of contact with members of Islamic State. But he hopes that if the message reaches as many people as possible through social media, it will eventually reach the hostage takers as well.
Toyoda says he prays for the safe return of Goto and Yukawa.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150122_29.html