[300.1] HATE MAIL AND MORE - KEMBER'S ORDEAL

Ekklesia have covered this morning's BBC interview with Norman Kember in the following four detailed stories (the latest of which was posted very shortly after broadcast at 9.45am):
Hate mail came after false media charges, says Norman Kember 15/04/06
Kember affirms gratitude for Iraq kidnap freeing 15/04/06
Kember still evaluating Christian peacemaker's role in Iraq 15/04/06
Kember notes irony of non-violent release by soldiers 15/04/06

Some key points: Kember acknowledges as a "mistake" going to an isolated mosque in Baghdad, from which the abduction took place - but testifies to the record of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq; he refutes false allegations of ingratitude and says that they led to "piles of hate mail"; it is revealed that Jim Loney sought to talk a young captor out of becoming a suicide bomber; Kember talks of tour of Baghdad before kidnapping; the interview focusses on his trauma and that of the family.

Other media coverage: Kember weeps over 'unreal' kidnapping (Telegraph, UK); Kember weeps as he tells of rescue (Daily Mail and global newswires); Former Iraq hostage Norman Kember says he considered suicide (Mainichi Daily News, Japan); Kember's emotional account (ITV.com); Kember speaks about Iraq ordeal (BBC News, UK); Kember refusing to star in own drama (Times Online, UK - Apr 2, 2006).

Listen to the Norman Kember interview on the BBC webcast 'listen again' service.

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[299.3] FIRST MAJOR NORMAN KEMBER INTERVIEW

EXCLUSIVE - Norman Kember, the Christian peacemaker who was freed last month after four months of captivity in Baghdad, will talk at length for the first time tomorrow of his ordeal in Iraq.

He will affirm the importance of non-violent interventions by groups such as Christian Peacemaker Teams, but will honestly acknowledge questions about his own action and that of CPT in these circumstances.

Kember, a retired medical professor aged 74, will appear in a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s Taking A Stand programme on Saturday 15 April, from 9.00-9.45am (UK time). The broadcast will be repeated on Easter Sunday, 16 April from 8-8.30pm.

In a conversation with experienced journalist Fergal Keane, Dr Kember answers his critics and talks about his survival in the most desperate of situations.

The peace activist, who is believed to be deeply traumatised by his experience, also speaks about the emotional cost to his family.

He was kidnapped by a previously unknown militant group, Swords of Truth, on 26 November 2005, along with Canadians Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, and American Tom Fox – who was subsequently killed.

For 117 days Kember was held hostage, for some of the time each day in chains. When he returned home; he found himself accused of being insufficiently grateful to his SAS rescuers. His motives have been questioned and he has been accused of being foolish.

In the BBC interview he speaks about his kidnappers, about his American fellow captive who was murdered, and about the rescue effort which freed him.

In his first statement to the media after his release, Dr Kember said that he would reflect on whether he had been wise or foolhardy going to Iraq to work on human rights issues and violence reduction programmes.

The group he went with, Christian Peacemaker Teams, has been operating in Iraq since 2002 and has built up experience in a number of conflict situations world wide.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the risks involved in the Iraq operation are very high, and in his interview Dr Kember will raise questions about this – echoing questions already countenanced by Christian Peacemaker Teams themselves.

Though he affirms the rightness of CPT’s work, Dr Kember is already known to have doubts about the propriety of his own involvement and the difficulty for CPT of supporting someone in a situation such as this.

Dr Kember was on a short-term CPT delegation, rather than a long-term assignment.

Christian Peacemaker Teams, founded in 1984, have been operational since 1990 and stress that they take as much care as possible in recruiting, deploying and supporting volunteers. They have not been involved in hostage situations before.

The organisation is in the process of reviewing its work in Iraq. A senior CPT coordinator, Peggy Gish, wrote on the Ekklesia website after the release of the three men: “We are not certain where God will lead us but we find courage and hope when our friends warn us, challenge our assumptions, or push us to be clear. Because as they do so, they also offer their continued support and love.”

This is likely to be their response to the necessary questions Dr Kember raises about his own actions and those of the Team he was part of.

Those who know the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and elsewhere have continued to affirm the value of what they do, in spite of the kidnap trauma.

Says Gish: “We hear differing opinions about the focus of our work. One person values most our work with prisoners. Another said, ‘The most important thing you can do is to tell the truth about the situation here.’ Others suggest a change of location or a change in the focus of our work.”

She continued: “One positive voice of support for CPT to remain in Iraq came from a Christian leader who also suggested relocating temporarily to another part of Iraq to explore future direction. He wrinkled up his face in disbelief when we asked if he knows Christians in Iraq who think our presence is making them unsafe. ‘I would feel bad if something happened to you,’ he said, ‘but I would be angry if you disappear. If you care for us just in the good times, I will forget you. If you take care of us in the bad times, I will remember you. [People] die when [they] do nothing, but live when [they] do something. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.’”

It is known that the traumatic impact of the four-month kidnap ordeal on Dr Kember and his family has been considerable, and Christian Peacemaker Teams stress that the particular circumstances of their workers matter a great deal in decision-making.

CPT works on trauma and psychological issues with its workers, and has offered assistance to the three kidnap survivors.

Dr Kember and his fellow hostages have been wounded by the virulent and often inaccurate criticisms that have been directed towards them since their ordeal ended.

[Also on Ekklesia: CPT in Iraq: What now? 04/04/06 - Peggy Gish reflects on the future of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. Briefing on media accusations against Christian Peacemaker Teams - detailed background; Contending the logic of violence - Ekklesia's Simon Barrow says that true Christian peacemaking cannot afford naivete]

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[299.1] EASTER AS REGIME CHANGE

My new feature article on Ekklesia is entitled How Easter brings regime change, and is mainly about what you might call the 'alternative political ecclesiology' of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But while we are about it, Christians have significantly lost the plot when it comes to explaining the meaning of the Easter Gospel in a culture which is now out of touch with the depth of traditional Christian language, and in a church which long ago abandoned the intellectual rigour demanded of theology in a post/modern world. So, inter alia, I try to say something less than usually misleading and inadequate on the topic of 'resurrection'. It's a tough job normally best left to luminaries such as Nicholas Lash, but here goes - an account of the substantiality of the conviction that "God raised Jesus" which seeks to go beyond the naive physicalism of many popular accounts (both those of believers and sceptics) and the alternating woolly metaphorical inferences which say less than meets the eye. The difficulty, of course, is that, God being transcendent, all our God-language will be necessarily metaphorical at some leve. But there is still metaphor that 'makes the connection' and metapohor that obscures it. (Back, I suggest, to Lash's Holiness, Speech and Silence, Ashgate 2005, if this needs more unpacking).

What could it possibly mean – let alone for our day – to claim that “God raised Jesus”? Part of the answer lies in considering the alternatives. In St Paul’s time many (outright sceptics aside) believed in the immortality of the soul or cyclical rebirth – the idea that there is a spark or substance in us that survives death or is reincarnated.

Early Christians rejected such notions for two reasons. First, they were realists not fantasists. Death is not something that can be survived. It is the boundary that makes life impossible. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “That Christ was indeed dead was not the possibility of his resurrection but the impossibility of it.”

Second, Paul’s followers dismissed the dualistic notion that body and spirit are two divisible entities, of which one part survives death and the other does not. In his writings the Apostle uses the term ‘flesh’ not to refer to ‘the physical bit of us’, but to designate the whole, embodied human person oriented towards death. The word ‘spirit’ he used to describe not some allegedly ‘non-physical bit of us’, but the whole, embodied human person oriented towards life.

But just as resurrection is not the survival of some part of a person beyond death, neither is it the reconstitution of a corpse, as is popularly (but wrongly) supposed today.

Rather, when Christians announce, with St Paul, that “God raised Jesus”, what we are claiming is not that a part of Jesus survived death or that his atoms were reassembled in some magical way, but rather that the very power, presence and personality of the earthly Jesus was assumed, transformed and made substantially available again within the endless creativity of God.

In other words, the resurrection speaks of a new creation, a different order of being beyond our current grasp which incorporates all that we have seen and discovered of love in this world, but much more beside.

This depth of life is the work not of us, but of a God who goes on loving and creating beyond the death which we inevitably face. If we have been touched by God’s love, we will begin to know that it has no boundaries, even if its essence (like God) lies beyond our description.
And here is the catch. For as St Paul says, with startling honesty: “If Christ is not raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins” – that is, you are still captive to that which is moulded on death rather than life. Continued.

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[298.2] LENT PROTESTS AT NUCLEAR SITES

Fifty years ago, tourists travelled to Las Vegas to watch mushroom clouds rise in the distance. But for the last 25 years the site has been a draw not for tourists, but for anti-war and pro-environment demonstrators – writes Lilla Marigza of the United Methodist News Service.

Between 1951 and 1991, more than 900 nuclear tests were conducted at a site 65 miles northwest of the city. Science would not know until decades later the environmental and health fallout from experiments at the Nevada test site. It has been called the "most bombed place on earth." Margaret Fuller-Lindgren of Palm City, California, goes there every year with a group of United Methodists. "When I come here it's very humbling, but it's also very empowering," she says.

On this day, a group of about 20 United Methodists walks down an otherwise empty stretch of paved road in the desert toward the test site. They carry a banner with the cross and flame logo and the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth." They are singing, "Walk With Me." Continued.

[A UMTV video report about the protest is watchable here. The UK Christian think tank Ekklesia has just launched Peacenik, an ISP which supports peace initiatives.]

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[298.1] GOING BEYOND REGAL PARSIMONY

Call me churlish, but I find the annual Maundy Thursday money-laundering ceremony something of a charade. The Queen was at Guildford Cathedral today, doling out 80p to eighty 'ordinary people', in an enactment of symblic bounty to the indigent going back to 1210 or so. In the early days, reigning monarchs would wash the feet of their subjects, which at least gets nearer the bone. But then they gave that up and adopted nosegays - floral smelling salts which meant that the delicate ruling classes didn't actually have to endure the rank smell of degradation over which they presided for the other 364 days of the year. Er... you can tell I'm not going a bundle on this, can't you?

Anyway, today's elaborate ritual gave the Church of England a chance to exercise its ceremonial thighs, while the richest woman in the world distributed the majestic sum of £64 to a bunch of Chelsea Pensioners. That's right, sixty-four quid. Barely enough to twitch the anti-redistributionist muscle of the average raging Blairite, let alone those new-fangled compassionate-but-neoliberal 'Dave' Cameron Tories. Monarchism really is an extraordinary thing. Why on earth do we put up with it, let alone give it divine sanction?

Thankfully, Thinking Anglicans (who will probably have a less jaundiced view than me of these events) marked Maundy Thursday rather more appropriately with a meditation on the table-turning Gospel of foot-washing and table fellowship. Here's the first section of Feasting in God's Kingdom...

Maundy Thursday is a turning point too in the story of the relationship between God and humanity. Throughout his ministry we see Jesus acting out the very message that he was proclaiming. He tells his listeners that the kingdom of God is at hand, that it is among them — and all the while he is doing the things he is talking about. He proclaims that in God’s kingdom the blind will see, the lame will walk, and the sick will be healed — and he goes around restoring sight, raising the paralysed, curing the sick; he proclaims that the kingdom is like a feast to which all will be invited — and he goes around eating and drinking with everyone, from members of the Council to the outcasts of society and the ritually impure, in their ones and twos and in their thousands.

Jesus is not just proclaiming the kingdom, he is also living it: he is inaugurating it and embodying it. And he draws his disciples and others into this realization of the kingdom, above all when they share a meal together. And then in the last meal before his death, Jesus does something new.

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[22.24 GMT] 'I am willing to risk my life' (Guardian, UK, Friday April 7 2006) By Kirsty Scott. An interview with Scottish teacher Jan Benvie, who will shortly be going out to Iraq as part of a fresh Christian Peacemakers Team. She talks about her motivation and the importance of violence reduction work in the face of worsening strife.

The CPT has had a presence in Iraq since 2002, but its profile was heightened with the kidnap of four of its members last November. With the four hostages holed up in Iraq, the organisation came in for criticism for having placed "violence reduction" teams of civilians in troubled regions. Since the rescue of Norman Kember and the Canadians in a military operation last month, questions have also been raised over whether the CPT has shown sufficient gratitude for the rescue of Kember and the others.

Benvie sighs when asked about the controversy. The issue of gratitude was a miscommunication, she says; the first response simply an expression of relief that the men's ordeal was over, an addendum quickly put out to thank those who had carried out the rescue. What she takes exception to, though, is any suggestion that she and Kember have no place being in Iraq. The work the CPT does there, she says, is practical, vital, and appreciated.

"Speak to the Iraqis we work with and ask them. That's what we use as a measure of whether our work is worthwhile. They do say so. For me, as long as people are saying what we do is worthwhile, then we will keep doing it," she says.

When she was there last summer, she and her fellow peace activists lived and worked with Iraqis - she lived in an apartment with an Iraqi family. She accompanied people to detention centres to find out what had happened to friends or family members; she detailed privations and alleged human-rights abuses, she visited hospitals, accompanied refugees to the country's borders, sought medical and other help for those in need. People such as the amputee in need of a prosthesis whom she was able to hook up with a US soldier, who specialised in such work.

What it is about, she says, is drawing up a picture of what is really happening inside Iraq, as well as being a western ally. So she is there in solidarity and as a witness. (See also: Scottish Christian Vows to Return to Peace Work in Iraq (Christian Today); Peace activist defends Iraq plan, BBC, UK, and pictures from Jan and CPT on Indymedia).

[11.41 GMT] US 'in talks with Iraq militants' The US ambassador to Iraq tells the BBC that American officials have held talks with insurgency-linked groups. This will be interpreted as 'defeatism' by the hawks, but in reality it is a sign of hope in a very dark situation (Life in Iraq: A day at a glance). See also: Church leaders praise Christian peacemakers (Ekklesia, UK) and the Jill Caroll update at Christian Science Monitor (USA). Hostage Kember praises envoy (BBC News, UK); Kember refusing to star in own drama (Times Online, UK); Harrow Observer scoops Norman Kember interview (Press Gazette, UK); Hostage's captivity united UK Muslims, Christians (Garowe Online, Somalia); Inter-faith support helped save the Iraq hostages (Daily Star - Lebanon); "Don't Rescue Me with a Gun" By Pejman Yousefzadeh (TCS Daily, Washington DC, USA); Freed hostage recalls bread and boredom in a million-dollar house (CBC News, Canada) - Harmeet Singh Sooden. Pic: Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to Iraq.

[19.34 GMT] Christian Peacemaker Teams - Where next? By Peggy Gish (Ekklesia, UK).
See also the launch of the Peacenik internet service provider, which among other things will be supporting the work of CPT based in the UK. Welcoming the initiative Tim Nafziger of Christian Peacemaker Teams in the UK said; “The Peacenik fund could be a important source of support for Christian Peacemaker Team members who need help to cover travel costs to CPT projects around the world.” The ISP will be run on a not-for-profit basis. The proceeds will be put into a fund to which peace groups are invited to make applications, regardless of their religious beliefs. This will leave the way open for, amongst others, Muslim Peacemaker Teams, which Christian peacemakers have helped to establish in Iraq, to apply for funding. Those of no faith will also be invited to seek funding. The thinktank Ekklesia has already donated £1,000 to get the fund going, but hopes that it will generate significant resources for the peace movement. The thintank already has a track record of generating significant funding using the internet. Last year the thinktank raised £130,000 for development work through its own web site. The money raised by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Peacenik.co.uk is expected to fund a range of projects including peacemaking trips to conflict zones, training for Christian peacemakers, and research into non-violent alternatives to conflict.

[23.59 GMT] Newspaper notes 'success' of article which made false allegations against Christian peacemakers (Ekklesia, UK)

[10.50 GMT] Harmeet Sooden returns quietly to New Zealand (Ekklesia, UK). The story also contains a comment on the allegations against the Sooden family concerning TVNZ, and a supportive comment regarding the news that Jim Loney is gay, and the likely impact of that on his reception. Meanwhile, the briefing on various slurs against the CPTers has been updated.

[09.40 GMT] More updates and weblinks on the aftermath of the relase of Norman Kember and his CPT colleagues later this evening. This is just an interim note to give a flavour of what's going on. Yesterday Bruce Kent (rather than Tim Nafziger) appeared on BBC Radio 4's 'The Moral Maze' to defend Christian peace-making work against a range of intemperate and largely inaccurate criticisms still in media circulation. But the story also seems to be turning in a more favourable direction in some quarters, as reflection starts to take over from knee-jerk pontificating. The curious story of the captives being shown a Jesus DVD in Arabic has done the rounds of the newspapers and agencies. Few (the Guardian is one notable exception) have picked up the point that Jonathan Bartley made - which is that this begins to tell us something significant about how the CPTers handled their captors and the situation as a whole. Would they still be alive without their training in nonviolence and their commitment to love of enemies? Yesterday evening, in London's Trafalgar Square, the final vigil took place to give thanks for the freeing of the CPT hostages - with some awareness that this is but a small sign of hope in the midst of a tragic vortex of violence and injustice unfolding in Iraq in the terrible wake of years of dictatorship and then the invasion.

[297.1] FIRST DETAILS OF CPT CAPTIVITY EMERGE

Amidst all the speculation about the military's role in last week's freeing three of the four Christian peace activists held captive in Iraq since 26 November 2005, the first details have begun to emerge about their treatment - and the response of the captives themselves to their awful situation.

In an interview conducted by The Baptist Times to be published in full tomorrow, reported on Ekklesia late last night and now on the PA newswires, CPT worker Norman Kember, a retired medical professor, has said that -- perhaps bizarrely, given the circumstances -- the militants holding the American, two Canadians and a Briton showed them an Arabic film of the life of Jesus.

Along with information that Kember received his heart pills, and that the kidnappers generally treated the captives with respect, this indicates that the four were in all probability able to use their nonviolence training and their Christian convictions to try to build up a rapport with the captors. Christian Peacemaker Teams consistently stresses the need to humanize rather than dehumanize those who act as enemies - a point Doug Pritchard of CPT confirmed to Ekklesia yesterday.

Dr Kember's comments are still rather sketchy, however. They came as part of a short conversation when he rang the UK Baptist newspaper informally to thank them for their support throughout his long ordeal. The CPTer is taking some respite to recover at the moment, and to consider the many media deals he has been offered.

CPT are concerned that when more information is given it is communicated in a way which cuts through the recent hype and furore generated by wild speculation and a considerable amount of misinformation in some commentary and political circles.

What is becoming clearer as the picture fills in is that the experience and stance of CPT contributed in no insignificant way to the men being free today. To what extent is not yet clear.

More information is also being sought on the circumstances of the tragic murder of American Tom Fox, following his removal from the group. There is speculation about differences of attititude and a split among the kidnappers and those to whom they were (or became) accountable. Again, CPT is concerned to wait for the facts.

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[15.50 GMT] BRIEF CPT UPDATES... Harmeet Singh Sooden has issued a brief statement through the Canadian government, and indicates that he will be speaking more fully on Friday. Norman Kember is seeking some respite, but is (unsurprisingly) being flooded by media offers. He is considering his options. Look out for a big story involving a UK church newspaper tomorrow, breaking sometime after midnight tonight. The issue of Christian peacemaking and the captives will be debated tomorrow night on BBC Radio 4's programme, 'The Moral Maze'. Tim Nafziger is appearing for CPT UK. He is certain to be attacked by irate columnist Melanie Philips. The major issue facing Jim Loney (pictured with Harmeet) at the moment, in addition to resettlement, concerns the fact that he was greeted on his return to Canada by his partner - and this means that people now know that he is gay. Sadly, this is likely to arouse hostility in some quarters. It is to be hoped and prayed that it does not impact his homecoming, just the addition of pink to yellow ribbons! Naturally his sexuality was not made public before, as this would certainly have imperilled his life. Things must have been particularly hard for his partner, who needs our support and prayers too. More later on...

[296.1] MORE OF THE ANTI-KEMBER CASE UNRAVELS

Army chief spoke without knowledge on alleged Kember ingratitude (Ekklesia, UK) - It is now clear that when the head of the British army, General Sir Mike Jackson (pic), expressed "sadness" about the fact that Norman Kember did not seem to have expressed gratitude to his rescuers in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) had not, in fact, known for sure whether this was so or not. (It wasn't.) I spoke to the MOD press office last night, after attempts to get hold of them over a couple of days and a call-back earlier in the afternoon. Their spokesperson said that the news of an official note of thanks from Christian Peacemaker Teams the day before Jackson was interviewed on UK's Channel 4 TV (that is, the evening of the release) had "not filtered through to them". Which is a polite way of saying that no-one checked. This would not have been difficult, as the statement was on the front page of www.cpt.org. Regrettably, it seems that it is easier to insinuate something in the absence of research than to examine the facts, as the media coverage over the last 72 hours has confirmed. It would be polite to say that Jackson's statement was a mistake, and perhaps it was. But the military are clearly keen to talk up their role in the freeing of the CPTers -- which is probably less than has been claimed so far -- and also to question or undermine the work and propriety of CPT. To suggest that General Jackson's statement to Channel 4 was less than well-crafted and carefully intentioned would be to do him a disservice. He is a wily media operator. And the MOD is stunningly well-resourced. So to put it gently, the jury is out on what lies behind this one. What is clear is that three of the key allegations against Norman and CPT have been been refuted over the past couple of days - (i) that they were 'ungrateful', (2) that CPT imperilled the lives of soldiers, and (3) that they had no right to be in Iraq. (On the latter two points, see the material on Colonel Mike Dewar below).

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[295.5] COLONEL BLOWS HIS TOP - NO-ONE HURT

Military expert says peacemakers didn’t imperil soldiers (Ekklesia, UK, 17.00 GMT) - Good news. As reported earlier on FinS, a senior counter-terrorism and military security analyst has confirmed that it is nonsense to say that Christian Peacemaker Teams caused any danger to soldiers in Iraq by their presence, or by the way they were freed. What's more, contends Colonel Mike Dewar, CPT have every right to be there. Before you run away with the idea that nonviolence has found an unexpected friend in the army, however, read the story and/or have a listen to the 'discussion' on BBC 2 ('listen again - Monday'). Poor old Mike, a stalwart pro-Iraq war commentator, almost explodes with indignation and contempt for anyone who disagrees with him, not least those soppy praying peacenik types. You really do worry for his blood pressure. He's certainly not the kind to shoot himself in the foot ... when machine gunning both his own legs off on a live broadcast is a going option! Sad really. But please don't tell him you're sad - that sets him off something rotten, too. And the idea that people (Norman, Harmeet and Jim) who have just been released from a four-month hostage ordeal and then told that a close colleague (Tom) has been killed might not immediately produce an ideal press release is, according to the Colonel, "special pleading of a most unattractive kind". It's truly cartoon-like in its unfeelingness and unknowingness. As Jonathan Bartley said, in a rational and good-temered contribution, "bewildering." In fact I'm not sure that Dewar is really a defence analyst at all. Judging from his capabilities at generating counter-productive apoplexy, I think he must be a secret mole for the peace movement ;-) ... A lighter reflection in an otherwise deadly serious situation. [Picture: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp on Broadway. The Colonel - no relation - blows a gasket.]

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[14.35 GMT] Sooden touches down in New Zealand (Canada.com, Canada); Hero's welcome for Loney (Canada.com, Canada); Peacemakers are misguided ingrates (Toronto Sun, Canada); Freed hostage under fire from UK press (ABC Online, Australia); Addressing media accusations of CPT members (Spero News) - reproduced from Ekklesia. [Pic: James Loney]

[13.30 GMT] Don't be daft, says anti-war group (Ekklesia, UK) - another response to the anti-Kember clamber.

[295.4] SO CPT DID NOT IMPERIL TROOPS' LIVES

++STOP PRESS++ Speaking on the BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Show today, leading counter-terrorism and security analyst Colonel Mike Dewar (pictured) - under questioning from Ekklesia director Jonathan Bartley - denied that Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq had imperilled soldiers' lives, and said that the activists had every right to be there. This blatantly contradicts widespread accusations against CPT in the media over the past 48 hours. Commentators and political opponents have been suggesting that the rescue actions taken by the military (against the expressed wishes of CPT, who work with diplomats but not the army) risked the lives of personnel on the ground. CPT disavows armed protection both as matter of principle, and to avoid others being imperilled by their actions. It has contested these claims, and now has backing from a senior military figure. You can hear the programme and the debate on the internet by going to this website and clicking on 'Listen again' + 'Monday'. More on this story later today. [See also the Vine show message board on the peacemakers and Iraq.]

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[295.3] MALIGNED ACTIVIST'S INTEGRITY AFFIRMED

Leading church aid agency defends Norman Kember's integrity (Ekklesia, UK).

Supporters and staff of the widely-respected international development agency Christian Aid have welcomed the release of peace activist Dr Norman Kember who was taken hostage in Iraq 17 weeks ago. And those associated with the agency who know the Christian Peacemaker Teams volunteer have testified to his dedication, responsibility and intellectual rigour – in the face of widespread media slurs which friends say have unsettled the 74-year-old retired medical professor. CONTINUED.

Also today: letters in support of CPT in The Times and The Daily Telegraph. However, neither The Times nor The Sun (both owned by global media baron Rupert Murdoch) have so far seen fit to correct misleading reports which wrongly suggested that CPT and Dr Kember had not thanked his rescuers. Indeed The Times has repeated it in its 'Forum'. Neither paper has acknowledged nor responded to requests for corrections and complaints so far.

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[295.2] TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT NORMAN

Briefing on media accusations against Christian Peacemaker Teams (Ekklesia, UK, 27/03/06).

Since Christian peace activist Norman Kember returned to Britain on 23 March 2006, following four months of captivity in Iraq, numerous media outlets have printed hostile, inaccurate, poorly researched and sometimes vitriolic accusations against him and his colleagues. Ekklesia, the respected UK religious think tank, which has also developed a fruitful exchange relationship with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the UK, has been covering the story of the hostages and their release in detail since its inception.

We have produced well over a hundred news stories and several briefings, as well as commenting to the media in the UK and internationally. What follows is a rehearsal of the most common allegations followed by straightforward responses to them. The intention is not to go into detail (that is available elsewhere on http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/) or to speak on behalf of CPT, but to clarify from Ekklesia’s perspective those major misconceptions which are in danger of being received as ‘facts’ in some quarters. The concern is to seek the truth of the situation and present information which, in spite of being made available to media sources, is still overlooked. FULL BRIEFING HERE.

Your help in making this briefing available and circulating it widely to friends, contacts, media outlets and organisations you are in touch with would be gratefully appreciated. (Simon Barrow & Jonathan Bartley)

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