Palestinian Groups Plead for Hostages -- Aljazeera

Palestinian Groups Plead for Hostages -- Aljazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EBF6D174-1C7F-470F-930B-BF53B6CFF0FB.htm

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Monday 05 December 2005, 20:32 Makka Time, 17:32 GMT    

Sooden (L) is described as gentle person and a peace lover

Aljazeera has received a letter from Palestinian rights groups based in New Zealand pleading for the release of the peace activists taken hostage in Iraq last week.

On Monday three groups - the New Zealand Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Students for Justice in Palestine, Auckland University, and Students for Justice in Palestine, Waikato University in Hamilton - appealed to the captors to release the peace activists. Harmeet Singh Sooden and James Loney, both Canadians, were taken with Norman Kember, a Briton, and Tom Fox, an American, on 26 November in Baghdad.

In a statement received by Aljazeera the groups asked the captors to be "merciful and free the men". The statement read: "[The men] have been supportive of those Palestinian and Iraqi people who to this day suffer injustice and oppression. "Harmeet Sooden is NO spy. He is a peace lover and very supportive of the oppressed Iraqi and Palestinian peoples"

Letter from New Zealand based Palestinian rights groups ~ "As groups concerned with the plight of Palestinians and Iraqis, we owe it to our friend and supporter Harmeet Sooden, held hostage with three other peace activists, to ask their abductors not to commit an unforgivable crime and harm the innocent.

"We know Harmeet personally as a fellow university student, a gentle person who regularly joins our rallies and demonstrations in support of the Palestinian and Iraqi people as evident in the attached photo recently taken in Auckland, holding a placard denouncing Israel's Apartheid policies. ~ "Harmeet Sooden is NO spy. He is a peace lover and very supportive of the oppressed Iraqi and Palestinian peoples."

Palestinian support ~ The Grand Mufti of the Palestinian territories backed this claim, saying the Western hostages were supporters of the Palestinian cause. Ekrema Sabri said the hostages are supporters of Palestine. Ekrema Sabri said that the four had all been visitors to the occupied West Bank and had taken part in demonstrations against the barrier being built by Israel in the territory.

"The kidnapping of the four was a surprise to the Palestinian people as they have been supporters of our cause and have stood at our side against the racist separation wall," the Muslim religious leader said at a press conference on Monday.

“It is our duty to support them and to issue a vigorous appeal to the kidnappers to free them so that they can go back to their families and resume their humanitarian work."

British plea ~ The wife of British hostage Norman Kember appealed for his release through Aljazeera on Sunday. Speaking from London, Pat Kember appealed to her husband's captors to free him and his friends. "Norman keenly takes care of others," she said. Pat Kember appealed on Aljazeera for captors to free her husband

"He believes that all people should live peacefully. He courageously resists all forms of aggression. He went to Iraq to help Iraqis, stop the widespread violations, identify with the circumstances in which they live and make Iraq a more peaceful place. ~ "I beg you to release Norman and his colleagues so they could continue their work for peace in Iraq. They are friends and allies of Iraqis who want to help you overcome evil by performing good deeds."

Kember, 74, an anti-war campaigner, was in Iraq investigating human rights abuses.

In a message broadcast by Aljazeera on Friday, their captors threatened to kill the hostages by 8 December unless all Iraqi detainees were released.

French engineer kidnapped ~ In another development on Monday, armed men kidnapped Bernard Planche, a French engineer, from outside his home in west Baghdad. Planche was kidnapped from outside his home on Monday. Planche was hauled away by seven men who arrived in two cars as he prepared to leave his home in the district of Mansur, police quoted witnesses as saying. Planche worked at the Rusafa water treatment plant in eastern Baghdad.

Also on Monday, Germany's Central Islamic Institute appealed to the captors of a German woman abducted in Iraq to set her free. In a letter to the kidnappers, a copy of which was sent to Aljazeera, the institute said: "If you are Muslims and believers of Islam you should know that to kidnap, hold under detention, haggle over and threaten with killing any person for any reason has been strictly forbidden by the Almighty Allah."

"Your deed is against Allah ... and means disobeying his commandments and disregarding the teachings and the sunnah (practice) of His messenger (peace be upon him) as well."  The letter was signed by Mohammed Salim Abdul Allah, senior director for the body.

Established in 1927, the Institute Islam-Archiv-Deutschland, is the oldest Muslim body in Germany.

Susanne Osthoff was abducted in Iraq on 25 November / Susanne Osthoff, 43, a convert to Islam, has been missing since 25 November. She had been working as an archaeologist and was abducted along with her driver. Osthoff has been seen in a video released by her captors, who threatened to kill her and her driver if Germany does not stop co-operating with the US-backed government in Baghdad.
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Related: Threat to kill Iraq hostages  
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AFF3E63D-93D0-4B36-BCE7-C7CD79739D9C.htm

by Friday 02 December 2005 10:02 PM GMT
  
Two Canadians, an American and a Briton are being held ~ Aljazeera has aired a new videotape in which kidnappers of four Christian peace activists in Iraq have threatened to kill their hostages unless all prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centres are released. The captors gave the two governments until 8 December to meet their demands, Aljazeera quoted a statement delivered with the tape aired on Friday.

Two Canadians, one American and a Briton are being held. The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets. The Briton and American hostages were shown talking to the camera but no sound was transmitted. The two were calling on the US and British governments to withdraw from Iraq, Aljazeera said, quoting the kidnappers' statement.

German hostage ~ Meanwhile, the mother and sister of a German woman taken hostage in Iraq have called on her kidnappers to show mercy and release her in an appeal shown on Aljazeera on Friday. "We beg of you - be merciful and graceful with my daughter and release her and her escort as soon as possible," Ingrid Hala, mother of the abducted Susanne Osthoff, said in the appeal.

Susanne Osthoff has been held in Iraq since 25 November ~ Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, disappeared a week ago. Earlier this week, her kidnappers said in a videotaped message that they would kill her if Germany did not end all support for the Iraqi government.  Germany helps train Iraqi forces outside the country but has ruled out sending troops there.
    
An image from the tape, delivered to Germany's ARD public television in Baghdad, showed what appeared to be Osthoff and her driver sitting on the ground surrounded by three armed, masked men.
  
"We appeal to you to spare the lives of my innocent sister and her escort," her sister Anja Osthoff said. "My sister has lived for a long time in your country and is devoted to it. She brought sick people medicine. She loves Iraq's great culture."
  
It was not clear who had abducted the archaeologist, a converted Muslim who had spent about 15 years working on excavations in Iraq before UN sanctions forced foreign experts out of the country in the late 1980s.

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AFF3E63D-93D0-4B36-BCE7-C7CD79739D9C.htm
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German woman abducted in Iraq = Tuesday 29 November 2005
Susanne Osthoff's kidnappers have threatened to kill her

A German citizen has been missing in Iraq for five days, the German Foreign Ministry says, while a television station has broadcast photos allegedly showing the blindfolded woman with her kidnappers.

News channel N24 on Tuesday identified the hostage as 43-year-old Susanne Osthoff from the southern state of Bavaria. The news of her abduction came on a day when two Iranian women, seized in Iraq with four Iranian men on Monday near Balad, north of Baghdad, were released unharmed by the captors.

Osthoff's mother told the channel her daughter had been organising aid shipments for Iraq. She said she was counting on the German government to help rescue her daughter. ARD public television said Osthoff, an archaeologist by profession, and her driver had been taken hostage. It described her as having been active in Iraq for several years and fluent in Arabic.

Osthoff's kidnappers had, in a video tape handed to ARD in Baghdad, threatened to kill her and her driver unless Berlin stopped cooperating with the US-backed Iraqi government, ARD said.
The channel added that a "very short time limit" was given. Extracts from the tape on ARD's website showed two people sitting on the ground with their eyes covered by white material surrounded by three masked, armed figures, one of whom appeared to be reading from a piece of paper.

Diplomatic intervention ~ German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger, travelling with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Washington Osthoff had been missing since Friday and that a unit had been set up to secure her safety.  He added: "The German government is directing its efforts to bringing her to safety as soon as possible."

New German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet her cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the case, a government spokesman said.  Germany opposed the US-led war in Iraq and has ruled out sending troops. But Merkel wants to improve relations with the US and said earlier this month Berlin would carry on with the previous government's policy of helping to train Iraqi forces outside Iraq.
Also on Tuesday, Christian Peacemaker Teams confirmed that four people from the group have been missing since Saturday.

"On 26 November 2005, two members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and two members of a CPT visiting delegation were taken in Baghdad," the statement said.

Iranian captives

A joint US-Iraqi regional military coordination centre said on Tuesday that two Iranian women seized with four other Iranian pilgrims near Balad a day earlier, had been freed. The Iranians were seized along with their Iraqi guide and driver by armed men who held up their minibus late on Monday.The driver was wounded, witnesses reported.

Iraq was rocked by a wave of foreigner abductions and beheadings in 2004 and early 2005. But since May, abductions have dropped off considerably, mainly because many Western groups left Iraq and security precautions for those remaining have been tightened.

Cleric killed ~ Attackers in several cars shot dead an influential Sunni Muslim scholar outside his mosque in the city of Falluja on Tuesday, witnesses said. Witnesses said the cleric was well-known in Falluja

Hamza Abbas al-Issawi, a mufti or senior Islamic authority, was coming out of the Wihda mosque after evening prayers when gunmen pulled up near him and opened fire.  "It is shocking, everyone in Falluja knows him, he is very respected," said Safah Naji, a witness.  "Even all the insurgents know him and everyone liked him."

Falluja is a former stronghold of the insurgency and is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab.  The attack follows the killing of other senior Sunni Arab leaders in the past two days. Politicians Iyad Alizi and Ali Hussein, members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, were shot dead as they drove through Baghdad on Monday.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A36BF95D-C728-4500-A2E8-9B7C75E49321.htm
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