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Vigil Planned For Former EMU Student Held Hostage In Iraq

"A tape broadcast Saturday threatened to kill four Christian peace activists unless all Iraqi prisoners are released from prisons in Iraq and the United States. The four (from left) are Canadians James Loney of Tronto and Harmeet Siingh Sooden, Tom Fox of Clear Brook, Va., and Briton Norman Kember. This image aired Saturday on Al Jazeera TV.
Photo by Associated Press / Al Jazeera

By Rob Longley, Daily News-Record

Friends of Tom Fox, the former Eastern Mennonite University student held captive in Iraq since Nov. 26, made a renewed call for his release on Saturday, the same day Al-Jazeera aired new video of the kidnapped peace activist.

Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, and three other peace activists were kidnapped in the fall while protesting human rights abuses in Iraq.

The men were in Iraq as part of a group from Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The previously unknown Swords of Righteous Bridges has claimed responsibility for kidnapping them.

"Tom Fox and the other Christian Peacemaker Team members are the friends and guests of the Iraqi people," EMU professor Lisa Schirch, a friend and former teacher of Fox, said in a statement Saturday. "I plead with those holding Tom, the other Christian Peacemaker… members, and journalist Jill Carroll to let them go so that they may tell the world about what is happening in Iraq, and may inspire others to demand an end to illegal detentions, torture, and the war in Iraq."

Carroll, a 28-year-old freelance reporter from the United States, was abducted Jan. 7 in Baghdad.

Vigil Today At EMU

In video dated Jan. 21 and broadcast Saturday by the Arab network Al-Jazeera, the kidnappers threatened to kill Fox and the other hostages unless all Iraqi prisoners are released from Iraqi and U.S. prisons.

The news reader said the group issued a statement with the tape saying it was the "last chance" for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to "release all Iraqi prisoners in return of freeing the hostages, otherwise their fate will be death."

No deadline was set.

Schirch said she understands the "anger" felt by the hostage-takers and others in Iraq.

"I share their sadness at the stories of torture, illegal detention, the holding of insurgents’ wives, and other abuses of freedom and human rights that have become the daily experience for many people in Iraq," she said.

Schirch and others in the EMU community plan to hold a candlelight vigil for Fox and the other hostages today at 5 p.m. at Thomas Plaza at EMU.

Christian Group In Iraq Since 2002

Fox was abducted along with Canadian hostages James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and Norman Kember, 74, of London. They had been warned repeatedly by Iraqi and Western security officials before being abducted that they were taking a grave risk by moving around Baghdad without bodyguards.

The footage released this weekend was gray and 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.

Al-Jazeera editor Saad al-Dosari declined to say how the station obtained the tape, which was about 55 seconds long. He said the entire tape aired.

Christian Peacemaker Teams has been working in Iraq since October 2002, investigating allegations of abuse against Iraqi detainees by American and Iraqi forces. Its teams host human rights conferences in conflict zones, promoting peaceful solutions.

More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam, and at least 39 have been killed.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report

— article by: Rob Longley, Daily News-Record; posted January 30, 2006