Former Aquebogue resident and international affairs journalist Mike Giglio was one of a group of reporters abducted and held by pro-Russian Ukrainian militants in eastern Ukraine Friday morning.
A band of masked, heavily armed militants were taken captive at a checkpoint en route to Slovyansk early Friday morning. They were blindfolded and held in an occupied police building for three hours. All were released unharmed, though Giglio and another reporter said two journalists were beaten by their captors.
Giglio, a reporter for Buzzfeed, said the campaign against the U.S. in Russian state-run media is in high gear and western journalists are having an increasingly hard time reporting on the situation.
See Giglio’s Buzzfeed report here.
At the checkpoint, one of the militants asked them, “Do you know the things America has been doing here?”and another said: “I should kill you right here,” Giglio wrote.
After the militants discussed holding the journalists hostage, they decided for undisclosed reasons to release them and then “politely” served their captives tea, Giglio reported.
Giglio was interviewed about the ordeal on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Monday.
This is not the first time Giglio has been taken into custody on foreign soil while working as a journalist. Last August, reporting for Newsweek and The Daily Beast in Egypt, Giglio was arrested and beaten by government security forces in a crackdown on protestors in Cairo.
Giglio is the son of Donna Finnigan, of Aquebogue, and Michael Giglio, of Baiting Hollow, and the stepson of Riverhead Town Councilwoman Jodi Giglio.
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
