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.
Over at Jihad Watch that well-known scholar of all things Islamic, Robert Spencer, asks: “Has CAIR ever protested against the kidnapping of anyone else in Iraq? … this protest of the kidnapping of the collaborators is the first one I personally can recall ever seeing from them.”
Well, I claim no expert knowledge of CAIR myself, but a quick google reveals several examples of the organisation condemning hostage taking in Iraq. For example here, here, here and here.