Transcript of Palestinian Press Conference Calling for the Release of the Four CPT Hostages in Iraq

Ramallah,
December 5th, 3 p.m. 2005
International Solidarity Movement

Each of the following people spoke in Arabic unless noted otherwise. The following is a transcript of the English translation that was provided by the ISM host.

Ikram al Sabri, the head Mufti of Palestine:

[Recording starts part way through]

“Kidnapping is not a civilised way to resist. The people kidnapped in Iraq used to work in Palestine. They were supporting us and struggling with us against the apartheid wall, they were supporting our position. They have been standing with our children in Hebron. There is a duty for all Palestinian people, institutions and factions to commit to sending a call to release these people who have been kidnapped. They are very important for us to help continue our struggle, whether here in Palestine or in Iraq, to gain our country’s freedom. We repeat our call to release all the civilian people who have been kidnapped all over the world, not only these four. They are not guilty of occupation, they are not engaged in any military or political help to the occupation, either here in Palestine or in Iraq. There is no doubt that the violence in Iraq hurts us all, and the reason for the violence in Iraq is the American occupation. So the occupation is the ultimate cause of violence and suffering of people there. We would like to thank everyone in the press who has helped us send this call to release them all. They have made a commitment to continue their social and humanitarian work in Palestine and Iraq.

[Translation presented as received]

Statement number (112) issued from the Iraqi Islamic Party Regarding the kidnap of the Four Captives

By the time that the Iraqi Islamic Party calls upon all Muslims to give the best image that represents our religion by applying its values. It should be alerted from, that there are people working hardly to defame its [Islam] bright white image and exploiting any accident to do that, including kidnapping captives and especially the four members of an organization that calls for peace. Also they are from the anti-Iraq-war movements‚ activists in their countries, and from those who demand the end of occupation of Iraq and the end of violations that the people of Iraq have been subject to.

Statement from Toronto security-certificate detainees on James Loney:

From Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub and Hassan -
Dec. 4,.2005

[original statement in Arabic and English in PDF]

Statement from the three Toronto security certificate detainees. James (Jim) Loney is from Toronto, and has worked on the campaign to abolish security certificates and to free these men.

To the people holding James Loney and the other Christian Peacemaker Team Members in Iraq,

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious and Merciful,

Iraq's armed guerillas are usually portrayed in vague and shadowy terms, allowing political commentators to cast them in whatever image is deemed convenient. Even the correct word to designate them says more about the commentator than the militants themselves. Those who wish to demonize them call them "terrorists"; those who wish to cheer them on call them the "resistance"; while the majority of the mainstream media cut it down the middle by calling them "insurgents"—while still providing little detail about who they actually are.

Now a front-page Dec. 2 New York Times story (online at the International Herald Tribune) actually provides a breakdown of the insurgency's major constituent entities, and an analysis of its strategies and structure, drawing on the research of the SITE Institute (for Seach for International Terrorist Entities).

The SITE Institute identifies five major groupings, each made up of numerous small, largely autonomous cells that operate under its umbrella. From largest to smallest: al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Ansar al-Sunna, the Victorious Army Group, the 20th of July Revolution Brigade and al-Rashideen Army.

The case of Chad's former president Hissène Habré, now fighting a Belgian extradition request on atrocity charges, will be handed over to African Union leaders to decide next month, Senegal's government announced. Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said Nov. 27 that Habré may remain in Senegal until AU leaders decide where he should be tried. Gadio recognized that Habré was accused of "odious crimes, even crimes against humanity," and promised that Senegal would "abstain from any act which would permit Hissène Habré not to face justice." He said that it was "up to the African Union summit to indicate the jurisdiction which is competent to hear the case."

The Bush administration decided to charge designated "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, a US citizen who was initially said to have been preparing a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack on US soil, with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior al-Qaeda members, government officials said.

On Nov. 16, Brazilian landless workers Vanderlei Macena Cruz and Mauro Gomes Duarte, residents of Accampamento Renascer (Rebirth Encampment), were assassinated while riding a motorcycle to work near Gleba Gama, in the Nova Guarita region of Brazil's Mato Grosso state. According to information released by the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the two men were found dead on a road that divides the properties falsely claimed by local landowners Silmar Kessler and Sebastiao Neves de Almeida known by the nickname Chapeu Preto (Black Hat). Another rural worker heard the shots and quickly gathered other residents to find the bodies on the road; the Military Police did not arrive at the scene until late in the evening.

On Nov. 19 and 20, some 19,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to demand a dramatic shift in US foreign policy and the closure of the US Defense Department's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly called the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), a combat- training school for Latin American soldiers. The protest, organized by SOA Watch, is held each November at Fort Benning to commemorate the 1989 murders in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter; some of the killers were SOA graduates. Last year 16,000 people attended. Organizers cited reports of torture by US soldiers and the ongoing war on Iraq as motivating factors for this year's record turnout.