WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, December 5, 2005 (IslamOnloine.net & News Agencies) – The leading US Muslim civil liberties group has called for the immediate release of four Christian peace activists kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with murder.

"Those who left the comfort of their homes to advocate for the rights of others that do not share their faith, ethnicity or language should be celebrated and honored by Muslims, not humiliated by being made captives or, God forbid, killed," Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told a news conference Sunday, December 4.

"As a leader of the American Muslim community and the head of America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, I make a personal appeal to the captors of the four members of the Christian Peacemakers Teams – release our brothers in humanity immediately and unconditionally," he said in a statement posted on CAIR's Web site.

The four activists, two Canadians, a Briton and an American, are associated with the US and Canada-based Christian Peacemaker Teams opposed to the US-led occupation of Iraq.

In a video that appeared on Al-Jazeera television, kidnappers said that unless all detainees in Iraqi and coalition prisons were released by December 8, they would kill the American Tom Fox, 54; Briton Norman Kember, 74; and two Canadians, James Loney, 41 and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32. They were kidnapped in Baghdad on November 26.

Speakers at the news conference included representatives of CAIR, the Washington-area Muslim community, All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), and Langley Hill Friends Meeting in McLean, Va., of which Fox is a member.

The CAIR leader praised the four hostages as "longtime friends of the Muslim community".

He stressed that on numerous occasions "they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims advocating for their causes – from forming human-shields in Iraq before the US invasion, to protecting the honor and property of the Palestinian people."

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad also credited the CPT with helping expose the abuse of detainees in Iraq long before the Abu Ghraib scandal became public.

Palestinians demonstrated Friday in Ramallah in solidarity with the four CPT hostage, saying they were peace activists who frequently demonstrated against the separation wall Israel was building on the West Bank.

The self-styled "Swords of Truth" group in Iraq has accused the four of spying for foreign forces in Iraq.

"Again I ask the captors to release our brothers so that they can continue to advocate for the cause of justice in Iraq and elsewhere, just as they have done in the past," said the American Muslim leader.

CPT has worked for over three decades, in various parts of the world, as a non-missionary, independent humanitarian aid and violence reduction organization.

They have worked in Iraq since October 2002 opposing the US/UN economic sanctions policy, the escalation of the war against the Iraqi people in March 2003, and the continued occupation of Iraq by all Western military forces.

A combo photo shows the four CPT activists.

In a related efforts, British Muslim leader Anas Altikriti held talks Sunday with Sunni groups in Iraq in a bid to secure the release of Kember and his three colleagues.

Altikriti, who was sent to Iraq by the Muslim Association of Britain and the Stop the War coalition, told the BBC he realized his mission was not an easy one.

"I think back to the Kenneth Bigley saga, the Margaret Hassan saga, and I dread what could happen," he said referring to western hostage killed by their Iraqi captors.

"But I also look back to the two French aid workers, the Italian journalists, to the Romanians, and I think 'yes, it could happen'."

Iraqi-born Altikriti denied having any hidden agenda, asserting it was "too delicate a situation to be partisan".

He went on: "So I'm taking extreme care to be seen as who I really am and that is neutral. I don't have a particular interest at this stage of time, apart from getting Mr Kember released."

Last June, Sheikh Taj Aldin Al-Hilali, Grand Mufti of Australia, succeeded in securing the release of Douglas Wood, an Australian contractor taken hostage in Iraq.

French Muslims were also credited with brokering the release of two French reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who were taken hostage in Iraq.

More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the US invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq. Fifty-two foreign hostages are known to have been killed by their captors.

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