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|
"We're
taking a serious step on behalf of our community, and we are
hopeful that our words will be heard and our appeal will be
listened to," Awad said.
|
WASHINGTON,
January 19, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An American
Muslim delegation was Thursday, January 19, in Jordan seeking the
release of Jill Carroll, a US reporter taken hostage in Iraq, while
the Iraqi government announced that the American army would release
six Iraqi women detainees.
"We're
taking a serious step on behalf of our community, and we are hopeful
that our words will be heard and our appeal will be listened to,"
Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Carroll,
28, a freelance journalist working for the Christian Science
Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad on January 7.
Her
kidnappers have threatened to kill her unless the United States freed
all female prisoners in Iraq within a 72-hour deadline.
"We
have been reading about her work ... and though we don't know her, we
know it is wrong to kidnap people and hurt innocent people," said
the American Muslim activist.
The
CAIR delegation will hold a press conference in the Jordanian capital
Amman late Thursday "to make a public appeal to the kidnappers
for Carroll's freedom," the Washington-based civil liberty group
said on its Web site.
The
delegation plans a second conference in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on
Friday, January 20.
CAIR
has earlier issued a statement -- translated into Arabic and
distributed to Middle Eastern media outlets – appealing for
Carroll's "immediate and unconditional" release.
Local
US Muslim leaders are also planning a conference in Carroll's home
state of Michigan to appeal for her release.
Free
Iraqi Women
The
Iraqi Justice Ministry announced Thursday that six Iraqi women
prisoners would be released by US forces, Reuters reported.
It,
however, denied any link between the move and the demand of Carroll's
abductors.
The
US military did not confirm the releases would take place.
A
spokesman said it could not discuss individual cases of detainees or
ongoing reviews.
The
US military confirmed on Wednesday it was holding eight female
prisoners in Iraq.
On
Tuesday, January 17, the Doha-based Al-Jazeera television channel
aired a videotape showing Carroll held by militants from a self-style
group calling itself "Revenge Brigades".
The
group said it was seeking the release of Iraqi women held in US-run
and Iraqi prisons.
"Un-Islamic"
 |
|
"Kidnapping
is un-Islamic," Al-Dulaimi said.
|
Muslim
leaders have condemned the abduction of the US journalist in Iraq,
calling for her immediate release.
"Kidnapping
is un-Islamic," Adnan Al-Dulaimi, a senior Iraqi Sunni leader,
told the Christian Science Monitor Thursday.
"We
reject this act. It is absolutely condemned. We will do as much as
possible to release Jill," he said over phone from Kuwait, where
he was attending the funeral of Kuwait's emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed
al-Sabah.
The
Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's highest Sunni religious
authority, also pressed for the immediate release of the US hostage.
"All
kidnappings and assassinations are completely rejected... especially
when kidnapping a journalist," AMS spokesman Muthana Harith
al-Dari said.
"Journalists
are in Iraq to tell the world about the occupation so kidnapping a
journalist is going to hide the truth."
Egypt's
Muslim Brotherhood also issued a similar call.
"We
call upon the brothers in the Iraqi resistance not to target media
workers," the group, which controls a fifth of seats in the
Egyptian parliament, said in a statement.
"This
contradicts the principles of our religion and doesn't help the cause
of liberating the country".
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