Archive for March, 2006

From Iraq: CPTers Freed in Iraq

Posted by opcol in Press releases on March 23, 2006

CPTers freed in Iraq

British, Canadian Hostages Freed in Iraq

LONDON (AP) — A Briton and two Canadians held hostage in Iraq for almost four months have been freed, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday.

Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, were freed during a military operation in Baghdad involving British special forces.

The men, members of an aid group called Christian Peacemaker Teams, were abducted along with American colleague Tom Fox, 54, in Baghdad on Nov. 26. The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility.

The men were shown as prisoners in several videos, the most recent a silent clip dated Feb. 28 in which Loney, Kember and Sooden appeared without Fox. Fox’s body was found March 10 near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshot wounds to his head and chest.

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[Israel-OPT] Press release: Nonviolent Demonstration against the Wall in the Christian village of Aboud

Posted by opcol in Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, Press releases on March 3, 2006

Demonstrators delivered peacefully to the soldiers the sentence of the High Court ordering the interruption of works on the Wall for 14 days.
Three tear gasses shot on the march. No throwing of stones by Palestinians.

Aboud, Ramallah Area – This morning around 100 people, Christians and Muslims of Aboud, among which around 25 international and Israeli Jewish peace activists formed a pacific march, departing from the town hall of the village and trying to arrive to the building site of the Separation Wall in construction next to the inhabited Palestinian village.

Despite the Separation Wall has already been completed on the Green Line (the border between the State of Israel and the West Bank 1967 Occupied Territories) 6 kilometers west from Aboud, Ministry of Defense is building this Additional Fence close to the village with the probable goal to annex to Israel Bet Arye and Ofarim nearby settlements, established in the eighties on Aboud’s land and declared illegal by an UN Security Council resolution. Works are proceeding very fast as bulldozers and Caterpillars are working in four different sites.

Yesterday evening, the Israeli High Court has emanated the order of suspension of the works of construction of the wall for 14 days. This decision is probably connected with the arrival in Aboud of the Episcopal American Catholic Conference Secretary, Cardinal McCarrick, next Friday. Since several months, His Eminence is concerned about the problems of the Christian communities in Palestine, especially related with the construction of the Separation Wall.

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[Israel-OPT] Press release: Nonviolent Demonstration against the Wall in the Christian village of Aboud

Posted by opcol in Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, Press releases on March 3, 2006

Demonstrators delivered peacefully to the soldiers the sentence of the High Court ordering the interruption of works on the Wall for 14 days.
Three tear gasses shot on the march. No throwing of stones by Palestinians.

Aboud, Ramallah Area – This morning around 100 people, Christians and Muslims of Aboud, among which around 25 international and Israeli Jewish peace activists formed a pacific march, departing from the town hall of the village and trying to arrive to the building site of the Separation Wall in construction next to the inhabited Palestinian village.

Despite the Separation Wall has already been completed on the Green Line (the border between the State of Israel and the West Bank 1967 Occupied Territories) 6 kilometers west from Aboud, Ministry of Defense is building this Additional Fence close to the village with the probable goal to annex to Israel Bet Arye and Ofarim nearby settlements, established in the eighties on Aboud’s land and declared illegal by an UN Security Council resolution. Works are proceeding very fast as bulldozers and Caterpillars are working in four different sites.

Yesterday evening, the Israeli High Court has emanated the order of suspension of the works of construction of the wall for 14 days. This decision is probably connected with the arrival in Aboud of the Episcopal American Catholic Conference Secretary, Cardinal McCarrick, next Friday. Since several months, His Eminence is concerned about the problems of the Christian communities in Palestine, especially related with the construction of the Separation Wall.

(…)

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