WORLD
CAPITALS, December 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Muslims and peace activists worldwide have intensified appeals for the
release of four Western hostages being held in Iraq, as a deadline for
their execution expires on Saturday, December 10.
"In
the name of all Muslim Brothers, I solicit the kidnappers... to let
them free without delay, and to safeguard their bodies and
souls," Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
movement, said in a statement, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"They
belong to a Christian organization that loves peace...the likes of
those should be welcomed by the Iraqi people, and their presence
should be supported," he stressed.
Akef
became the latest world dignitary to deliver a stern appeal for the
release of four Westerners associated with the US and Canada-based
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which opposes the US-led occupation
of Iraq.
American
Tom Fox, 54; Briton Norman Kember, 74; and two Canadians, James Loney,
41 and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, were kidnapped in Baghdad on November
26.
The
previously little-known group calling itself Swords of Truth has
extended an ultimatum to murder the four until Saturday, demanding the
release of thousands of Iraqi prisoners held in jails across occupied
Iraq.
Muslim
scholars and activists from around the world, including Sheikh Yusuf
Al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Association of Muslim
Scholars (IAMS), and the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, have appealed
for the hostages to be freed.
Iraqi
Plea
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Begg said the hostages "were only in Iraq to promote human rights for the oppressed."
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"I
ask those who have an influence ... to release these hostages,"
Sheikh Ahmad Al-Samaraie, a senior Sunni imam, told worshippers at
Friday prayers in the Abu Hanifa mosque, one of main Sunni places of
worship in Baghdad.
"We
don't want to lose people while we are in misery."
The
CPT has worked for over three decades, in various parts of the world,
as a non-missionary, independent humanitarian aid and violence
reduction organization.
It
has 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.
The
group has blamed for the United States and Britain for the kidnappings
due to their "illegal acts" against the Iraqi people.
Guantanamo
Plea
A
former Guantanamo detainee has also pleaded for the release of Briton
Kember and his three colleagues, reported Reuters.
Moazzam
Begg, a British Muslim held for almost three years at the notorious US
detention facility in Cuba, said a video showing the hostages dressed
in orange jump suits reminded him of his own ordeal.
"When
we were first granted release by Allah's mercy, we came home to find
that there were people who opposed their government in their brutal
war waged against Afghanistan and Iraq and stood on the side of
justice. And they were not Muslims," he said.
"It
is our sincerest belief that Norman Kember, the 74-year-old Briton,
and those with him are amongst those people, the many people, who
opposed this war from the beginning and were only in Iraq to promote
human rights for the oppressed."
His
statements came a day after a similar plea to the kidnappers by
Jordanian Abu Qatada, who is under detention in Britain for links to
Al Qaeda and faces deportation.
Canadian
Initiative
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"It would be inhuman to kill them," said Sheehan.
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American
anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, who staged a 26-day vigil near the
Texas ranch of US President George W. Bush after her son died in Iraq
in 2004, said the hostages were trying to help the people of Iraq.
"I
want to remind you that people around the world are trying to pressure
their governments to withdraw from Iraq," she told Al-Jazeera
television from London on Friday.
"It
would be inhuman to kill them."
Ehab
Lotayef, a representative of the Canadian Islamic Congress, has flown
to Baghdad in a bid to secure the release of the Christian hostages.
"Those
of us who have dealt with the CPT workers know they are very honest,
very clean. We know they never had any evangelist goals," he told
reporters.
"Please
let the CPT people come out, let them be free and let them spend the
holidays with their families," he said.
Iraq-born
British Muslim leader Anas Altikriti has visited Iraq for talks with
Sunni groups in a bid to secure the release of Kember and his three
colleagues.
Thousands
of civilians have been kidnapped in Iraq since the start of the US-led
occupation of Iraq in March 2003.
Many
hostages have been released, but around 50 have been killed, some by
grisly beheadings shown on the Internet.
The
recent kidnappings marked a spike in the taking of foreign hostages
after a relative lull.
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