veiled4allah: Palestinians rally for release of Christian hostages in Iraq

8ackgr0und N015e has an important diary at Daily Kos about how Palestinians are rallying in support of the Christian Peacemaker Team members who are being held hostage in Iraq:

Yesterday in Hebron Palestinians held a rally calling for the release of the Christian Peacemakers Team being held hostage in Iraq. These Palestinians are standing in solidarity with the hostages because they know that Tom Fox, one of the hostages, on many occasions had stood between Palestinian children and Israeli tanks... ...A demonstration will be held in Rammallah today at the Al Manara square 3:00 PM to call for the release of the four kidnapped peace activists in Iraq.

Speakers at the demonstration will include a representative of the Palestinian Islamic Forum, Shawkat Samha The Mayor of Jayouss (where Harmeet and Tom volunteered), Mustapha Barghouti head of the Palestinian Initiative and Kadura Fares of the National committee against the wall and settlements.

This is the second rally in support of the CPT hostages being held in Iraq. Yesterday, friends of Tom Fox in Hebron held a rally also calling for the release of the CPT hostages. A third demonstration will be held in the village of Tawani, tomorrow at 1:30, where American Tom Fox served as a volunteer.

Please do read the whole thing. We don't see enough positive reports about Palestinians in the news.

Update: In other news:

A leading British Muslim and anti-Iraq war campaigner has arrived in Iraq on a mission to secure the safe release of kidnapped Briton Norman Kember. Anas Altikriti went to Baghdad to try to persuade the hostage takers to free Kember.

Altikriti, who is representing the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Stop the War and CND, has the blessing of Kember's wife Pat, who said: "I much appreciate this visit." ...

...A spokesman for the MAB said Altikriti's first step would be to meet CPT in the city, after which he would talk to influential Sunni Muslim organisations in a bid to convey to the hostage takers that Kember should never have been seized.

But he admitted Altikriti, who is of Iraqi extraction, was "under no illusion" about the riskiness of his mission. "He will try to explain that by holding Mr Kember they are doing a great injustice," the spokesman said.

Later: CAIR:

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.

Later: Via the Daily Mail:

The head of the world's oldest Islamic movement has called for the immediate release of British hostage Norman Kember. Mohammed Mahdi Akef, president of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, is the latest leading Muslim to urge the kidnappers to release their captives. In a message broadcast on al-Jazeera on Thursday Mr Akef said kidnapping innocent people was against the principles of Islam.

He said: "In the name of the the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide I call for the western peace activists in Iraq to be released immediately.

"Islam rejects the kidnapping of innocent people regardless of their aim, beliefs and opinion and all laws locally and internationally consider kidnapping a crime, particularly when it targets innocent peace activists who are known for their activity and solidarity for the Iraqi cause."

Mr Akef said the hostages were from a well-known Christian group which works in solidarity with Palestinian people "against Israeli aggression".

"Such people should be welcomed, not harmed, and their efforts should be endorsed," he said.

"Kidnapping will only distort the image of Iraq."