Bless his soul.
May. 18th, 2004 03:50 pmFather of Slain U.S. Reporter Appeals to Muslims
Tue May 18, 2004 05:54 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslims should turn away from extremists who are trying to hijack their religion and condemn them for the murders of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, the father of one of the slain Americans said in an appeal on Tuesday.
"I am not directing this letter to the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is thought to have beheaded Nicholas Berg, or to Osama bin Laden," Judea Pearl wrote in an emotional commentary published in the Wall Street Journal.
"I am speaking to those who can win the minds of the young and faithful to the side of hope: intellectual leaders who pride themselves on peace and modernity, and clerics, imams and mullahs who have been voicing concern over the hijacking of Islam by a minority of anti-Islamic extremists."
Pearl said Berg's videotaped beheading last week was "a similar attack on humanity" to the 2002 murder of his son, Daniel, whose throat was cut by Islamic militants in Pakistan.
The younger Pearl was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal on assignment when he was kidnapped and killed.
"I beseech you to join the courageous Muslims who have denounced, in unambiguous language, not only the killing of Nicholas Berg, but the growing practice of killing innocent human beings as a means of communicating grievances," Pearl wrote.
"No civilized society can survive the intensity of modern conflicts unless such killings are repelled back to the realm of the inconceivable," said Pearl, who is a professor of computer science at the University of California in Los Angeles.
He said Americans had been shocked and outraged by the abuse of Iraq prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and would demand justice.
He appealed to Muslim religious leaders to demand that Pearl and Berg's killers be brought to justice and to shape their children's future by "turning your condemnation into a public outcry" against violence.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Tue May 18, 2004 05:54 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslims should turn away from extremists who are trying to hijack their religion and condemn them for the murders of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, the father of one of the slain Americans said in an appeal on Tuesday.
"I am not directing this letter to the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is thought to have beheaded Nicholas Berg, or to Osama bin Laden," Judea Pearl wrote in an emotional commentary published in the Wall Street Journal.
"I am speaking to those who can win the minds of the young and faithful to the side of hope: intellectual leaders who pride themselves on peace and modernity, and clerics, imams and mullahs who have been voicing concern over the hijacking of Islam by a minority of anti-Islamic extremists."
Pearl said Berg's videotaped beheading last week was "a similar attack on humanity" to the 2002 murder of his son, Daniel, whose throat was cut by Islamic militants in Pakistan.
The younger Pearl was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal on assignment when he was kidnapped and killed.
"I beseech you to join the courageous Muslims who have denounced, in unambiguous language, not only the killing of Nicholas Berg, but the growing practice of killing innocent human beings as a means of communicating grievances," Pearl wrote.
"No civilized society can survive the intensity of modern conflicts unless such killings are repelled back to the realm of the inconceivable," said Pearl, who is a professor of computer science at the University of California in Los Angeles.
He said Americans had been shocked and outraged by the abuse of Iraq prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and would demand justice.
He appealed to Muslim religious leaders to demand that Pearl and Berg's killers be brought to justice and to shape their children's future by "turning your condemnation into a public outcry" against violence.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.