Al-Jazeera has aired a video of Margaret Hassan, the Director of CARE that was taken hostage in Iraq on October 19th. In the video she pleads with Tony Blair to stop redeployment of British troops to Baghdad and says she is worried she may be killed.
Yahoo/AP
Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped director of CARE International in Iraq, wept and pleaded for Britain to act to save her life in a video aired Friday. "Please help me. This might be my last hours," the gaunt Hassan begged, shaking with fear and burying her face in a tissue.
The wrenching appeal by Hassan puts new political pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair's government after it agreed to a U.S. request to redeploy troops to the Baghdad region to free up American forces for a new assault on insurgents.
Hassan, an Irish-British-Iraqi citizen who has been doing humanitarian work in Iraq for 30 years, pleaded with Britons to persuade Blair not to carry out the redeployment and warned she might meet the same fate as British hostage Kenneth Bigley, who was beheaded by his captors
You have got to be kidding me. There are terrorist sympathizers out there in the world, but I believe if they kill an old lady, who was helping the starving and sick, brutally on video even terrorist sympathizers would be done with them.
Once again we see them trying to blame Tony Blair for their actions of disgust, as they did with Kenneth Bigley.
All women taken hostage in Iraq have been freed so far.
"Please help me. Please help me," Hassan said, trembling. "This might be my last hours. Please help me. Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them here to Baghdad. That's why people like Mr. Bigley and myself are being caught. And maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley."
"Please, please, I beg of you," she said, then broke into tears and wept into the tissue.
"We", she must be with other hostages. Why use the plural instead of just "I". I know that she's been in Iraq for 30 years, but I don't think that would have diminished her English to the point of a foreigners, which routinely confuse the past-present and plural-singulars.
The British government calls on those she has helped to support her.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the video "extremely distressing."
"I have the greatest sympathy for what her family is suffering," Straw said in a statement Friday. "Margaret Hassan has spent more than 30 years working for the Iraqi people. We hope all Iraqis will join us in calling for her immediate release."
There are currently no claims of responsibility for the hostage taking and the group responsible is not known.
If the video is released I will post it. Expect updates.
Tipped by: In The Bullpen
Other Commentary:
The Jawa Report
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Nov. 16 - Margaret Hassan, Director Of CARE And Hostage, Executed By Terrorists
Nov. 12 - Margaret Hassan, Director Of Care And Hostage, May Be Inside Fallujah
Nov. 2 - Margaret Hassan, CARE Director, Video Surfaces; Terrorists Threaten To Turn Her Over To Zarqawi
Oct. 28 - New Hostage Video Of Margaret Hassan Released
Oct. 22 - Margaret Hassan Hostage And Director Of CARE Video Released
Oct. 19 - Margaret Hassan, Director Of CARE, Taken Hostage In Iraq
"H", don't you understand that if ANY action is taken, it should not be to placate the animals who kidnap, murder and attempt to extort from any person, State or Government!
These people should not be considered Human, let alone "Resistance, Insurgents or Warriors". And they should be treated as same . . Put them in a cell by themselves, keep it dark, let 'em out for 1 hour at night, feed 'em Pork and do not let them communitate with any other human for the duration of their lives! Don't even tell 'em where Mecca is! No martyrdom! No heaven, no virgins, just Darkness . . . Never mention their names again . . Just darkness . .
Posted by: large on October 23, 2004 11:02 AM