Category: In the Media

Deadline extended, fears continue for safety of hostages

Originally published in CBC News

Kidnappers holding four members of a Christian aid group in Iraq, including two Canadians, have extended their deadline. The militants now say Britain and the United States have until Saturday to meet their demands or the four will die.

The extension of the deadline means more time to negotiate a peaceful resolution, but it also means increased pressure, anxiety and heightened emotions for the families of the hostages.

James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Sooden, 32, were kidnapped at gunpoint on Nov. 26 in Baghdad, along with Briton Norman Kember, 74, and American Tom Fox, 54.

Loney is from Toronto and Sooden has lived in Montreal.

A group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigades has demanded the United States and Britain free all Iraqi prisoners by Saturday. The kidnappers say the men are spies, which is denied by their organization.

The hostages are members of a Christian aid group called Christian Peacemaker Teams, which sends teams to troubled areas. According to its web site its actions in Iraq are aimed at “focusing attention on the issue of detainee abuses and basic legal and human rights …”

The family of James Loney met with reporters on Wednesday at their home in Sault Ste, Marie, Ont.

Patrick Loney, father of James Loney, could not speak, his exhaustion evident. Instead it was James’ brother Edward who said the family was thinking not only of their situation but were also praying “for other families facing similar circumstances in Iraq.”

“We want James home,” said another brother, Matthew Loney. “We want the other members home. And we want a peaceful resolution to how things are going over there,” he said.

The militant group that is holding the Westerners originally demanded that Iraqis being held in U.S. and British custody be released by Thursday. But as the deadline approached, it was extended for a further 48 hours.

Prime Minister Paul Martin says he is concerned about the fate of the Canadians. “I’ve been on phone every day and we’re doing everything we possibly can. But it’s a matter of such delicacy I can’t really comment,” he said.

In a statement released late Wednesday evening Martin went further. “I want to reassure the public that the government of Canada remains absolutely committed to securing the safe release of the hostages. Every resource of the government is committed towards achieving that outcome.

James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden (courtesy Christian Peacemaker Teams) “Canada remains willing to listen to and speak with persons who may have information that will assist in the safe release of the hostages,” said the statement.

Christian Peacemaker Teams issued a statement on Wednesday evening highlighting its concerns about the safety of the four men.

“Christian Peacemaker Teams believes that no single person, no single nation can meet the demands of justice. No single person, no single nation can meet the demands of peace. But we believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to do their part to bring each combatant and each captive home to their families and to end the war and occupation.”

There was support from around the Arab world, as well.

Mohammed Ayash of the International Solidarity Movement for Palestine, said the hostages are peacemakers, friends of Muslims and defenders of Iraqi detainees “because they are working there as human rights [supporters] and are against the occupation,” he said.

Israel Ready to Deport Peace Activist Scot for Second Time

by Billy Briggs
Originally published in The Herald

A Scottish peace activist is facing deportation from Israel for the second time.

Andrew MacDonald, 31, from Spean Bridge, Lochaber, near Fort William, is currently being held in a detention centre near the Gaza Strip, but is resisting his removal.

He was arrested by Israeli police in Hebron in the West Bank on November 24.

His father, John Muncie, said yesterday that Israeli police had threatened that Mr MacDonald could be drugged and put on a plane back to the UK.

Mr Muncie said: “His refusal is a protest against the state of Israel’s policy of deporting human rights workers from the occupied territories of Palestine. Andrew was in Palestine for 15 weeks before his arrest.

“He spent most of his time in Tel Rumeida, an area of Hebron where the Palestinians live in virtual hell. They suffer from the daily abuse of the 500 or so Israeli settlers who established an illegal enclave there a few years ago. Countless instances of daily brutality to the dwindling Palestinian population were recorded and photographed by Andrew and his colleagues, who lived in an apartment in Tel Rumeida.

“They daily escorted Palestinian children to and from school to try to protect them from the assaults of settlers.”

In August 2003, Mr MacDonald, a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was deported after trying to stop soldiers blowing up and bulldozing the house of a Palestinian family where he was staying in Nablus.

He subsequently changed his surname from Muncie to MacDonald so he could obtain a new passport and return to Israel.

His father said the family fully supported his decision to go back.

“He had gone out in 2003 to try to support the ordinary Palestinians. The attempt had been cut short. He was still of a mind to help them.

“Andrew MacDonald was the name on his new passport. As Andrew Muncie, he would have been stopped at Tel Aviv airport. This in spite of the fact that Andrew Muncie had committed no crime or offence when he had last been there,” Mr Muncie said.

During his latest stay, Mr MacDonald attended peaceful demonstrations against the controversial wall which the Israeli government is constructing in the West Bank.

No-one was available for comment yesterday at the Israeli Embassy in London.

The ISM is a Palestinian-led non-political movement which helps to organise non-violent protests against terror and illegal occupation.

Parents speaking out to keep alive memory of child killed in Gaza


Photo by Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette

By Gabrielle Banks
Originally published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Cindy and Craig Corrie have been doing speaking engagements a few times per month since their daughter Rachel died kneeling in front of an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer in Gaza nearly three years ago.

The 23-year-old peace activist’s death became such a fulcrum for a debate that President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eventually weighed in on it.

An Israeli military investigation concluded that Rachel’s death on March 16, 2003 was accidental; the Corries have requested that U.S. officials conduct an independent investigation.

But, rather than focus on the details of that unforgettable day at speaking engagements, they try to honor Rachel’s life by continuing the work she hoped to accomplish.

The Corries, who live in Olympia, Wash., will touch on those global issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a discussion tonight at the University of Pittsburgh. Their talk will follow a screening of a documentary about Rachel’s work by Palestinian director Yahya Barakat.

Rachel was a senior at Evergreen State College when she set off for Gaza in January 2003 with the International Solidarity Movement, a group that practices peaceful civil disobedience to prevent demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure.

Her death thrust Ms. Corrie, 58, and Mr. Corrie, 59, who describes his extended family as “average Americans — politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class,” into the heat of a geopolitical struggle that Rachel feared too few Americans understood.

To deepen their understanding of her life and her death, the Corries and Rachel’s two older siblings combed through their memories, trying to absorb details. A journal entry Ms. Corrie made when Rachel was 2 1/2 jumped out: her toddler asked, “Is ‘brave’ part of growing up?”

Rachel rattled off a list of potential careers for her fifth-grade yearbook that included a lawyer, a poet, “an environmental and humanitarian activist” and the first female president.

In a seemingly prophetic e-mail to her mother about two weeks before her death, she wrote: “Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. … I am really scared for the people here.”

They heard machine-gun fire in the background the first time she spoke with Rachel on the phone.

Mr. Corrie had trouble writing to Rachel. Based on what she said and his experience with the 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam, he believed the Israeli military at the time was “out of control.”

Rachel was bunking with the children in the first floor of a duplex that belonged to a local pharmacist, Dr. Samir Nasrallah, and his wife. The Nasrallah children were behind her, inside their home, when a 65-ton Caterpillar bulldozer crushed Rachel to death.

“There are many people who are doing what Rachel was doing in Palestine and other parts of the world,” Mr. Corrie said.

He admitted, “I’m not the type of man that would sacrifice his child’s life, I miss her.”

But the Corries clearly admire their daughter for taking a stand.

“Wouldn’t we all like to think we’re the kind of person who, if a child was in front of a bus, we would dive and save them?” he asked.

The film “Rachel: an American Conscience” will be screened at 7:30 tonight at 120 David Lawrence Hall, University of Pittsburgh. Cindy and Craig Corrie will lead a discussion.

Palestinians appeal for Indo-Canadian hostage’s release

Originally published in The Indian Express

RAMALLAH: An appeal for the release of Harmeet Singh Soodan, the Indo-Canadian volunteer of the Christian Peacemaker Team kidnapped in Iraq, came from an unexpected quarter on Thursday—the International Solidarity Movement that supports the Palesitinan cause, with which Soodan had worked when he was in West Bank and Jenin between December 2004 and January 2005.*

“He worked in solidarity with local Palestinian people, mostly in West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin,” an ISM spokesman said. While in Jenin, Soodan had worked with a group of activists who planted olive trees .

Soodan had been planning to come back to Palestine for three months to rejoin the ISM in December as a long-term activist, but he first decided to join a two week CPT delegation to Iraq, ISM said.

The Indo-Canadian, in an e-mail to his friends recently described the purpose of the four-person team’s work in Iraq as “providing humanitarian aid in the form of training and documentation of non-violent responses to lethal inter-group conflict”.

“We will also record the current conditions in Iraq, meeting with representatives of NGO’s, Christian and Muslim clerics, Iraqi Human Rights groups and others,” he wrote.

Another hostage, Tom Fox (54) also worked in Palestine and had participated in demonstrations against construction of the Israeli fence in Jayyous, the ISM said.

*The International Solidarity Movement is priviliged to have worked with the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron for several years. The ISM is proud to stand in solidarity with CPT in this difficult time.

Palestinians appeal for release of Western activists kidnapped in Iraq

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
RAMALLAH

Palestinians, led by their top Muslim cleric, appealed to Iraqi insurgents on Wednesday to release four Western peace activists, saying three of them had spent time in the West Bank aiding the Palestinians.

The four workers for the group Christian Peacemaking Teams – an American, a Briton and two Canadians – were shown in a video released Tuesday by insurgents in Iraq.

While in the West Bank, American Tom Fox and the two Canadians demonstrated against the construction of Israel’s security fence, helped Palestinian children to get through Israeli army checkpoints and pitched in with the olive harvest, Palestinians across the West Bank said Wednesday.

“We demand that these aid workers be released immediately,” said Mufti Ikrema Sabri, the Palestinians’ top Muslim clergyman. “We tell them that these aid workers have stood beside Palestinian people and it’s our duty now to stand beside them.”

Sabri said Islam opposes taking civilians hostage and said such kidnappings are “inhumane.”

Palestinians in several towns said they had worked with the three activists and asked Sabri to issue the appeal. Hundreds of international activists have aided the Palestinians in largely nonviolent demonstrations during the more than five years of fighting with Israel.

“They subjected themselves to grave dangers when they stood in front of Israeli bulldozers,” said the mayor of the West Bank village of Jayyus, Shawkat Samha. “We knew them as people who were against occupation and supported freedom for occupied peoples, like the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples.”

Samha said he had met Fox and recognized him in the video that was shown on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

Fared Tomallah from the West Bank village of Salfit said he cried when he recognized captive Canadian Harmeet Sooden on television.

“I saw him many times suffering through tear gas with the Palestinians when demonstrating against the wall,” Tomallah said, referring to the separation barrier. “We appeal to Iraqi insurgents to release him and we assure them that these people have nothing to do with the occupation.”

The local branch of Christian Peacemaking Teams in the West Bank city of Hebron said that one of the captives, James Loney from Toronto, Canada, had helped Palestinian children get through Israeli army roadblocks in the divided city. Loney was slated to return to Hebron next week to continue his work, said Rich Meyer, an activist with the group.

“The kidnapping prevents him from coming here to work,” Meyer said.

The group’s Toronto branch released a picture of Fox sitting with children.