Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Ann Arborite journalist/hostage Jill Carroll nears deadline for killing

20. January 2006 • David Boyle
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See, e.g, today’s Detroit News,
”...The kidnappers – identified as the previously unknown “Revenge Brigade” – have set a deadline of Friday evening for all Iraqi female detainees to be freed or they will kill Carroll. ...Carroll grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and received an undergraduate degree in journalism in 1999 from the University of Massachusetts. She worked as a reporting assistant for The Wall Street Journal before moving to Jordan and launching her freelance career in 2002, learning Arabic along the way. ...The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations flew to the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Thursday and scheduled a news conference Friday in Baghdad. The group said it hopes to reach Arab television audiences and persuade Carroll’s captors to free her. The Bloomfield Hills-based Islamic Shura Council of Michigan, which represents about 20 Muslim groups in the state, told the Detroit Free Press that Carroll’s kidnapping would not help the Iraqi cause. ...”
I hope prayer works, since a lot of us are no doubt doing that, including many a blogger/journalist.

  1. Dd! I have been casting my (inter)nets far and wide about this woman since I posted this at MLW yesterday:

    http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5350

    {who woulda thunk?}

    in lieu of prayer, will you accept directed electrical energy?
       —Miss Devore    Jan. 20 '06 - 03:33AM    #
  2. this is of course terrible news, though i hope things like this help americans finally understand what kind of risks journalists take to get information out…

    mission accomplished,
    ari p.
       —Ari P.    Jan. 20 '06 - 02:17PM    #
  3. She is getting what she deserves. What’s so funny is that here she was competely brainwashed by sunni muslims to think that the country is suffering. Meanwhile 80% of the country was freed. Only the sunni are upset b/c they lost they stranglehold on the land. Now she will get a taste of the people she was “defending.”
       —muhammed    Jan. 20 '06 - 06:05PM    #
  4. She does not deserve to be killed, please have some decency. Thank you.
       —David Boyle    Jan. 20 '06 - 11:12PM    #
  5. Update: see MSNBC, “U.S. Muslim group pleads for hostage in Iraq: New appeal comes day after deadline for reporter’s release passed”,

    “A U.S. Muslim advocacy group arrived in Baghdad on Saturday to plead for the release of American hostage Jill Carroll, while an Iraqi official urged U.S. forces to free six detained Iraqi women in a bid to save the journalist.
    ...
    A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations flew to Baghdad from neighboring Jordan in a bid to drum up momentum for Carroll’s release. The 28-year-old was abducted Jan. 7 in a tough west Baghdad neighborhood.
    “We are the only people who have come from outside of Iraq to call for Jill’s release and we are very hopeful they will hear our message on behalf of American Muslims,” Nadi Awad, the group’s executive director said at Baghdad International Airport. “Harming her will do (the kidnappers) no good at all. The only way is to release her.”
    ...
    In a statement aired Friday by two major Arab television stations, her father, Jim Carroll, described his daughter as “an innocent woman” and told the captors that sparing her life would “serve your cause more than her death.””
       —David Boyle    Jan. 22 '06 - 03:24AM    #
  6. The link is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10895039/ , though I somehow couldn’t make it clickable. Sorry.
       —David Boyle    Jan. 22 '06 - 03:25AM    #
  7. I just wanted to apologize for my previous posting. My real name isn’t muhammed; I actually support President Bush (because I hate Arabs because they’re racially inferior goyim) and so I posted those comments because I wanted to make Arab people seem evil.

    Thanks to David Boyle, I have realized that spreading hatred with lies is not the wrong thing to do.

    [Just kidding. I’m not the psychopath that published that other comment]
       —muhammed    Jan. 23 '06 - 02:44AM    #
  8. I mean, IS the wrong thing to do.
       —muhammed    Jan. 23 '06 - 02:45AM    #
  9. From the 1/31 Free Press, “As Carroll weeps, pleads on new tape, outrage rises: Metro Muslims again condemn reporter’s captors” (sorry the link isn’t glowing…it’s http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060131/NEWS05/
    601310316),

    “Weeping, her face pained, kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll appeared Monday in a new video broadcast on an Arabic TV station, reportedly pleading for the release of Iraqi female prisoners held by U.S. forces and the Iraqi government.

    ...The Al-Jazeera newscaster said she appealed for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to free all woman prisoners to help “in winning her release.”

    ...”It’s upsetting to see an innocent person pleading for her life,” said Mouhib Ayas, a medical doctor from Troy who heads the Islamic Shura Council of Michigan. “You sympathize with her. ... I hope she gets released soon.”

    ...”The tactics that the abductors are using—showing her with a veil on, crying, asking for the release of the Iraqi prisoners—is an unacceptable tactic,” said Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Even if the abductors believe the Iraqi women are being imprisoned unjustly, Islam does not condone two wrongs making a right.”

    ...The U.S. military released five female prisoners last Thursday but said the release was not linked to Carroll. It was believed be holding about six more. It was unclear how many Iraqi authorities held. ...”
       —David Boyle    Feb. 2 '06 - 03:13AM    #

  10. Search for Carroll continues: No word from kidnappers in Iraq on fate of Huron High graduate ...I’m now having computer trouble and can’t print quotes from the article, but I may later on. Sorry.


       —David Boyle    Feb. 27 '06 - 09:28PM    #

  11. Computer working slightly better now; so from the above Ann Arbor News article of today,

    “As a wave of violence took a deadly toll in Iraq, the latest deadline set by the kidnappers of American journalist and Ann Arbor native Jill Carroll passed Sunday with no word on whether her captors carried out their threat to kill her.

    Iraqi police conducted raids over the weekend in search of the 28-year-old freelancer for the Christian Science Monitor but came up empty-handed.

    ...Station owner Jassem Boudai said then that the kidnappers had set Feb. 26 as the deadline for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to meet their demands or they would kill her.

    ...On Sunday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said an extensive search was under way for Carroll.

    “Our forces raided some suspected places, but she was not there,’’ Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. “We are watching the situation closely.’’

    The Bush administration, Hamas, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts have called for Carroll’s release.

    A woman who answered the phone Sunday morning at Carroll’s mother’s house said the family had no new information and politely declined comment.

    David Cook, the Monitor’s Washington bureau chief, echoed that sentiment and reserved comment. On Saturday, he said: “We know our journalistic colleagues will understand why we need to exercise great care in commenting on Jill’s situation.’’ ...”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 27 '06 - 09:33PM    #

  12. I do not feel that Jill Carroll deserves any special treatment. The Bush administration is doing the right thing by not giving into any terrorist demands.


       —Kevin Wood    Mar. 27 '06 - 04:31AM    #

  13. Although it is good to avoid surrender to terrorists, it is still all right to, say, see if women prisoners in Iraq should be released for other reasons than mere terrorist demands. If that helps save Jill Carroll’s life, all the better.

    ...Carroll, just for being an American, deserves very “special treatment” by the administration; and so do you, Kevin. Thanks for listening.
       —David Boyle    Mar. 27 '06 - 05:26AM    #