Up-to-date news about members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) missing in Iraq

04/01/06

Within 6 hours of the release of the 3 CPT hostages, criticism was being broadcast on conservative blogs and the radio. The CPT put together a reponse to those criticims: CPT hostages - dispelling the myths. Texans for Peace has also been included in those criticisms following an editorial in the San Antonio Express News: Peace isn't made when real wrongdoing goes ignored . Texans for Peace has responded to Mr. Gurwitz in person as well as through our website and directly within the blog discussions on various sites. Listed below is our statement:

03/23/06

WORLD - The three hostages remaining (Tom Fox was killed two weeks ago), were released today. While the circumstances surrounding their captivity and subsequent "rescue" everyone is thrilled to have them safe and looking forward to them rejoining their families. Details of how they were found, who their captors actually were (none were found at the site), and why they were taken in the first place, and who actually murdered Tom Fox still need to be investigated. While criticized by some, the fact that the CPT has remained in Iraq helps draw attention to the ongoing problems (some call "the face of evil") in that country.

CNN - Joy of friends and relatives

Reuters - Intelligence work leads to Iraq aid workers' rescue

CNews - Raid to save hostages planned quickly

02/14/06

Iraqi rights group plans Baghdad protest for release of Christian Peacemakers

TORONTO — A local Iraqi human-rights group is planning a demonstration in Baghdad this week to press for the release of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams taken hostage in the fall, a Canadian colleague of the captives said Monday. The protest will take place Friday in the same square where the statue of ousted president Saddam Hussein was toppled almost three years ago following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, fellow team member Allan Slater said from Baghdad. The protest is taking place against a backdrop of anger in the Muslim world that has, at times, erupted in violence over a controversial series of editorial cartoons published in Denmark in September and since reprinted elsewhere.

02/11/06

Truth-tellers about Iraq are dangerous, letter to the editor by Marion Stuenkel - posted on URUK.Net

01/28/06

Those holding our four peace activist friends have threatened to kill them unless all Iraqi prisoners are released from Iraqi and US prisons, according to a tape broadcast today. Al-Jazeera television aired a 55-second tape dated January 21 showing the four workers from the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker activists, who were taken on November 26. The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigade claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

The newsreader said the group issued a statement with the tape saying it was the “last chance” for US and Iraqi authorities to “release all Iraqi prisoners in return of freeing the hostages otherwise their fate will be death”. The footage showing the men appeared greyish in tone and was apparently shot using the camera's night-vision function. It showed each of the four men standing near a wall, before cutting away to another shot in which they were seated and talking but their voices were not heard.

01/17/06

Reporters's abductors demand Iraq prisoner release - Baghdad/Washington (dpa) - The group that kidnapped a US journalist on Tuesday threatened to kill her unless the United States frees all Iraqi women prisoners, her employer said. The Monitor said her captors made the threat in a statement that set a 72-hour deadline for the prisoner release.

01/13/06

More UK vigils keep focus on Norman Kember - Supporters and friends of abducted British humanitarian worker Norman Kember, who was seized in Iraq over six weeks ago along with three other Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) volunteers, are planning a series of vigils to maintain public focus on his plight.

01/12/06

Lakeside man heads back to Iraq - Allan Slater's planned return to Iraq Jan. 20 is partly because of -- not in spite of -- the November kidnapping of four members of the Christian Peacemakers team he belongs to.

01/11/06

Australian Muslim Seeks Freedom for Christian Peace Activists in Iraq - Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an organization dedicated to reducing conflict in crisis areas, was still awaiting word Wednesday, January 11, from four kidnapped staff members after Arabic television channel Aljazeera aired an appeal for their release from one of Australia's leading Muslim leaders.

01/09/06

American Reporter Becomes Hostage - The call came from reporter Jill Carroll's cell phone, from a young, wary-sounding Iraqi man who said he had just picked up the phone from a sprawled body on a Baghdad street. "The person this phone belongs to was just killed," the caller said.

01/01/2006

It has been three weeks since the deadline passed when CPT kidnappers threatened to execute the peacemakers. Family members have resorted to direct appeals on Iraqi radio and in newspapers, but as yet there has been no news or reaction. New members of the CPT continue to travel to Iraq and are seeking answers, along with many Iraqi and international groups.

12/7/2005 4:44 PM

The Associated Press: Kidnappers of Christian activists extend deadline. Al-Jazeera TV is reporting that kidnappers who have threatened to kill four Christian peace activists have extended the deadline for the U.S. and Britain to meet their demand to free all Iraqi prisoners. The original deadline set by the group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness was Thursday. Al-Jazeera now reports the group has extended it until Saturday.

Tue Dec 6, 2005 11:39 PM ET

Daughter of US hostage in Iraq appeals for his life. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The daughter of an American hostage in Iraq appealed for his life in an interview on Tuesday, telling his captors that killing him would not advance their cause. Katherine Fox's father, Tom Fox of Clearbrook, Virginia, is one of four Western aid workers that a group calling itself "Swords of Truth" has threatened to kill unless Iraqi detainees are released by Thursday. In a transcript of an interview with ABC's "Nightline" program, Fox said her father was in Iraq working on behalf of Iraqi detainees and their families. She said she wanted to remind her father's captors that he opposed the U.S. occupation of Iraq and had campaigned against it. "And that the work that he is there to do is the same work that they would like to see done. And that I do not think a loss of his life benefits their cause," Fox said. Fox rejected the view of conservative radio talk show personality Rush Limbaugh that for her father to be in Iraq without protection was essentially asking for trouble. "I don't think that he even saw it as asking for trouble. He saw a need." she said. "There is a need to help the Iraqi people, especially at a time when so many organizations are no longer able to be present because of the danger."

11:06 CST Dec 6, 2005
AUSTIN - WATCH ABC NIGHTLINE TONIGHT. an exclusive interview with the daughter of the American CPT hostage, Tom Fox. The segment will also be provided for broadcast on al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

Tue. Dec. 6 2005 4:31 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff - A new video posting has surfaced that shows the four aid workers who are being held hostage in Iraq thanking their kidnappers for their treatment. The footage showed up on a website from New Zealand called Scoop. While the images are dated Dec. 2, it remains unclear when the video was made.

13:33:34 EST Dec 5, 2005
LONDON (AP) - Direct contact had been made with kidnappers of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday, quoting a western diplomat in Baghdad. Foreign Affairs Canada spokeswoman Kim Girtel refused to comment on the BBC report, citing the sensitivity of the situation. “At the moment," she told globeandmail.com, "we're not commenting on any of the ongoing efforts to secure the safe release of the hostages given the sensitivity to the matter. “At the moment, we're just not commenting. It's a very sensitive matter, and it wouldn't be appropriate to do so.”

Tuesday Dec 6 06:09 AEDT
An Auckland University student being held hostage in Iraq appears to be getting favoured treatment from his captors and has been heard on video saying he hopes to be released soon, The New Zealand Herald has reported. Posted with sound on the internet, the video shows the 32-year-old Auckland student seated next to fellow Canadian citizen James Loney, 41, both dressed in civilian clothes and eating grapes and biscuits. They appear pale and serious, but relatively relaxed. In contrast, retired British professor Norman Kember, 74, and American Tom Fox, 54, are standing chained together, grim-faced, in long-sleeved overalls. Harmeet Singh Sooden was shown eating and drinking and thanking his captors for their treatment, saying: "We hope to be out of here soon".

FROM CPT

CPT confirmed on 29 November that the four human rights workers missing in Baghdad on 26 November are associated with our organization.

CPT is aware of a second video tape that makes reference to demands and a specific timeline for those demands to be met. We are investigating this situation.

"We are distressed that those who have taken our friends, Harmeet, Tom, Norman and Jim, could try and bargain with their lives and we want to understand why they would do such a thing. The taking of lives in any circumstance is against every thing we stand for. Please, whoever is holding them, release them all unharmed. Their families are very worried about them and we want their safe return home. We fear that whoever is holding them has made a mistake. These four men are peacemakers, not spies. CPT has consistently opposed the war and the continuing presence of multinational forces in Iraq."

CPT IN IRAQ

FROM TEXANS FOR PEACE

Texan anxious over friends held hostage in Iraq
Peace group founder is also CPT member

AUSTIN, TX - November 30, 2005, 11:00 AM CST - Members of Texans for Peace are anxious and saddened to learn that colleagues in the peace movement, four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), were taken hostage in Iraq over the weekend.

Charlie Jackson, founder of Texans for Peace, returned from his third CPT to Iraq in September and has personally worked with two of the hostages: Jim Loney and Tom Fox.

"These peacemakers are kind and thoughtful. At the same time they understand that being committed to peace requires the same sort of dedication and perseverance as those committed to war," said Jackson.
Texans for Peace has actively worked to end the war in Iraq and participated in activities from Crawford, Texas to Iraq, he stated.

"We revile terrorists, thugs, and clandestine foreign governments in Iraq that attack, kidnap, and kill civilians. Equally, we condemn those who continue to support this war - from President Bush to the pundits on television - who lack understanding of what is actually going on outside of 'Green Zone' areas and hide behind a feigned concern for the Iraqi people while contributing to the deteriorating situation in Iraq," said Jackson.

Before he left for Iraq Jim Loney wrote, "just as soldiers are asked to sacrifice their lives for the state, as a Christian who believes in nonviolence, I believe that I must be prepared to make the same sacrifice."

IRAQ TRIP 3

FROM JIM LONEY

(written by Jim, just before he left for Iraq) In Defence of the Sacred Heart

I was never a big fan of the Sacred Heart. In fact, the Sacred Heart used to make me see red: white-bread, saccharine-soaked images of Jesus staring into blue with puppy-dog eyes; robes and hair flowing in pious cascades; story-book religious camp for the spiritually infantalized.

But, on a high summer Sunday morning in ordinary time, in a little country church located on the banks of the Saugeen River (back in the days of our failed attempted to begin a rural Catholic Worker community-but that's a whole other story), it happened. The Sacred Heart changed my heart.

I was early for a change. I genuflected, slipped into a back pew, and as my eyes adjusted to the stained-glass light Mary emerged on sanctuary right, Jesus on sanctuary left, their fiery hearts on larger-than-life display. Mary held her hands gently against her chest with fingers curled into her palms and index fingers pointing to her heart. Jesus stood with arms reaching down to his waist, nail-pierced palms turned outwards and heart burning in a crown of thorns.

I was startled by their uncomprosing vulnerability. A shiver surged through my body. Jesus and Mary were meeting the world with hearts absolutely and irrevocably wide open, welcoming everything and everyone: anger, fear, violence, hatred; a wild janjaweed raider, an Abu Ghraib interrogator, a Pentagon war-planner, a robber with a gun. Regardless of who you are or what you have done, Jesus and Mary offered unconditional embrace, waiting hands and an open heart.

I tried to imagine myself in their sandals. What would I do if I encountered such a character? Run, clench myself into a fist, reach for a weapon? At the very least I would fold my arms across my chest and look tough. In Iraq, while facing a man with a gun with my hands tied behind my back ("Give us money," he said. "We know you have more"), I wasn't so tough. I shook uncontrollably. I was afraid, but not so Sacred Hearts. They are open to anything, ready to go anywhere.
I next met the Sacred Heart in Auschwitz' Block 11, a Gestapo hell-hole where the most exquisite tortures were used to crush those suspected of resisting the Nazi regime. In cell #20 for example, four prisoners would be forced to stand overnight in three-foot square cubicles, work their slave-labour day jobs, and return to their special accommodations for three consecutive days. They were lucky if they got a bowl of nettle soup.

I couldn't believe it. Next door, in cell #21, carved in the wall, the image of a young bearded man with luminous eyes, a halo, robes, heart exposed in the center of his chest: the Most Holy Sacred Heart of Jesus etched into plaster by a prisoner's fingernails, a member of the Polish underground captured in 1944 named Stephan Jansienski.

And, reaching across Jesus' waist, a partly-finished arm, the flesh at its shoulder seemingly stripped down to bone. I imagined a starving prisoner kneeling in front of Jesus, face pressed tight to his chest and holding on for dear life. Tears filled my eyes. Even here, in this godforsaken place, and everywhere, in every dungeon of despair, the Sacred Heart beats. There was no suffering in which the Sacred Heart did not dwell. I knelt down too.

I fell in love with the Sacred Heart that day. I see it now as a profound meditation on human freedom, on the disarming power of the disarmed life. When we know who we are, a no-matter-what loved child of God, then we cannot but love in that same no-matter-what way, without condition or limit or fear. When we lay down our weapons (whatever they be-the desire to punish or an inter-continental nuclear missile) and open wide our hearts, we become truly free, a Sacred Heart ready to embrace anyone, do anything, go anywhere.

erhaps old Leo XIII was on to something after all when he "solemnly consecrated" all humankind to the Sacred Heart on June 11, 1899. He called it "the great act" of his pontificate. Perhaps history would be a little different if we all took the Sacred Heart to heart.