But their decisions, unlike President Arroyo's, were not driven by terrorist demands.
Rather than giving in to terrorist demands, he offered to close down Schloss Schonau, a processing point for Jewish emigrants.
He talked about the need to be tough in the face of terrorist demands, about France's support for the president who was recently elected in Ivory Coast and about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which he said were stalemated.
While the government's public stance at the time was defiance in the face of terrorist demands and a refusal to negotiate, behind the scenes an unusually, fraught tone is discernible in private discussions.
Many saw Sony's move as caving to terrorist demands.
Through the perpetration of spectacular violence, terrorists can induce irrational decisions in frightened populations, weakening their infrastructure and public confidence [1] and, in some cases, persuading the population to give in to terrorist demands [2].
"Algeria will not respond to terrorist demands and rejects all negotiations," he said.
"Algeria will not respond to terrorist demands and rejects all negotiations," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said on television.
McNee believed that the conclusion of siege exemplified the British government's policy of refusing to give in to terrorist demands, "nowhere was the effectiveness of this response to terrorism more effectively demonstrated".
