James Brandon
Encyclopedia
James Brandon is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, most recently working in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 freelance on assignment from the Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...

and The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

, covering the occupation and insurgency
Iraqi insurgency
The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...

. During this assignment, he was kidnapped and held hostage, but was released after one day.

Brandon was educated at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

 and then the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...

, where he read history and graduated in 2001 with first class honours. He subsequently spent four months working for the Yemen Times
Yemen Times
The Yemen Times is unified Yemen's first and most widely-read independent English-language newspaper. The paper is published twice-weekly and has its own printing press, advertising associates and news service....

as a sub-editor and reporter, when he learned Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. He then enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...

, reading "modern trends in Islam", before joining the Baghdad Bulletin
Baghdad Bulletin
The Baghdad Bulletin was an independent bimonthly English-language news magazine first published on 9 June 2003. It was one of an estimated seventy newspapers that were launched in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein after the US-led invasion of Iraq....

in July 2003, a start-up, non-aligned Iraqi paper staffed mainly by Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...

 graduates, especially those from his school, and offering a variety of widely differing viewpoints on recent events.

Born to an Egyptian Coptic Christian father, Ramsay Nassim, Brandon changed his surname by deed poll in 2001.
There was some controversy over his new name - with James Brandon having to deny that he had "stolen" his name from a fellow pupil at the school he attended.

At roughly 23:00 local time, on August 13, 2004 in Basra, Brandon was snatched from his room at the Diafa hotel by about 30 masked gunmen, some in police uniform. Later a video tape was released, featuring Brandon and a hooded militant, threatening to kill him within 24 hours unless US forces withdrew from Najaf
Najaf
Najaf is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2008 is 560,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Governorate...

, where they had cordoned off Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army
Mahdi Army
The Mahdi Army, also known as the Mahdi Militia or Jaish al-Mahdi , was an Iraqi paramilitary force created by the Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in June 2003....

 militia. Brandon was released after less than a day, following intervention by Moqtada al-Sadr. At a press conference immediately after his release, Brandon commented on his treatment and thanked his kidnappers: "Initially I was treated roughly, but once they knew I was a journalist I was treated very well and I want to say thank you to the people who kidnapped me." A spokesman for al-Sadr said: "We apologise for what happened to you. This is not our tradition, not our rules. It is not the tradition of Islam." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3560892.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3563032.stm

In a Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...

feature, Brandon gives a detailed account of the kidnap. He describes being beaten and pistol-whipped by his angry kidnappers, as well as a series of mock executions. He recounts escaping, after holding a woman at knife-point, to a government building where guards found him, but his evasion attempt failed when the guards phoned his kidnappers, who promptly arrived to collect him. Although he expected to be killed, the video with the ultimatum was then recorded. Despite being told repeatedly that he was a journalist, his kidnappers appear to have assumed he was a spy or agent for the occupation. It was only when they saw a report about the kidnap on al-Arabiya television that his kidnappers came to believe him. Brandon's treatment improved markedly and he was told he was going to be released. Later he was taken to Sadr’s Basra office where the press conference took place. Brandon was delivered to the British military police who gave him medical treatment and escorted him to Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

the following day. Brandon planned to see his family and go on holiday, but said he wanted to return to Iraq : "Only next time, I just want to do the reporting. I have no desire to be the story again." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3566348.stm

James Brandon now works at the Quilliam Foundation.
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