Hostage
On July 19, 1982, Dodge was abducted from the AUB campus by pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim extremists, flown to a prison near Tehran, and held until his release exactly one year later. "The kidnapping, and the ensuing diplomatic efforts to secure Mr. Dodge’s release, received worldwide news coverage." The Syrian government helped secure his release from Iran, after being held initially in Lebanon. The kidnapping was considered significant because it directly implicated Iran in the hostage-taking activities of Shiite factions in Lebanon. Dodge was one of the first Americans kidnapped. Some hostages were killed and others released after many years, including Terry A. Anderson. Malcolm H. Kerr, who succeeded Dodge as president of AUB, was shot and killed outside his AUB office in January 1984.
Read more about this topic: David S. Dodge
Famous quotes containing the word hostage:
“Neither dead nor alive, the hostage is suspended by an incalculable outcome. It is not his destiny that awaits for him, nor his own death, but anonymous chance, which can only seem to him something absolutely arbitrary.... He is in a state of radical emergency, of virtual extermination.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)