Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

Saturday brought no new reports regarding Jill Carroll or the Christian Peacemakers datained in Iraq for thirteen weeks. Iraq CPT delegate Peggy Gish comments on the present situation there:

An Iraqi human rights worker was interviewing members of our team for her radio show, when we heard the news. The Shi'a Al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, had been heavily bombed early that morning. All around Iraq, groups of angry men gathered to protest or retaliate by attacking Sunni mosques and leaders.

We heard that gun-battles had erupted in many Baghdad neighborhoods. Police began to close bridges. In a neighborhood where Iraqis of Palestinian origin live, two rocket-propelled grenades exploded. We talked on the phone with a Christian priest who had been injured in his leg by shrapnel when a group of men shot into the church building. We canceled later appointments for the day. Everywhere people feared the situation would escalate into sectarian war. [...]

The news that did not get widely circulated, however, concerned the many actions to demonstrate and foster unity. On Wednesday, Sunni and Shi'a marched together from the Al Mansour neighborhood to the Khadamiya district in Baghdad calling for peace. In another Baghdad neighborhood Shi'a residents protected a Sunni mosque. Sistani urged Shi'a not to attack Sunni Muslims or their holy places. Shi'a leader Muqtada Sadr also called for an end to the sectarian violence and commissioned the Mehdi Army in Basra to go to the Sunni mosques to protect them.

Aljazeera's reports today echo Gish's message. In a crisis spiraling toward civil war, Sunni & Shia leaders in Iraq have united to stop the escalating sectarian violence.

On Saturday, representatives of the Shia figure Muqtada al-Sadr met members of the most influential Sunni religious organisation and the biggest Sunni political bloc as violence continued to rage after the bombing of a major Shia shrine on Wednesday. [...]

"There is no way we will be divided no matter what the conspiracies," said Fadil al-Sharaa, a cleric who represented al-Sadr in talks at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad.

The leaders condemned the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra north of the capital on Wednesday, which triggered reprisals against Sunnis.

also from Aljazeera: Roundup of Events in Iraq

Journalist Thomas Houlahan addresses the captors of Jill Carroll, who is facing a new deadline for her execution by a group calling for the release of all Iraqi women detained by U.S. forces:

Harming Jill Carroll won`t speed up the process, and would almost certainly slow it down.

Iraq`s Deputy Prime Minister Abed Mutlak Juburi has been critical of U.S. detention policies. He has said that 'The detention of Iraqis is not good for U.S. forces and is harming the political process in Iraq.' Juburi has also said that a plan to release prisoners in groups of 500 was in the works, with the goal of releasing 1,500 per month.

Juburi has been especially critical of the arrest of Iraqi women and their use as leverage by U.S. forces. 'I am against the detention of all women, no matter where they are from,' he said. 'Women should not be used as instruments of pressure and I am against their abduction, whatever the reason.'

He has been working toward gaining the transfer of all women currently held by U.S. forces to Iraqi custody and the release of those who are innocent. Four have already been released.

The release of the women from U.S. custody is clearly just a matter of time.