Pakistan must not free the murderers of Daniel Pearl!

Can anyone forget this journalist kidnapped in Pakistan on January 23, 2002?

Daniel Pearl, in charge of the Wall Street Journal office for Southern Asia, had come to the area to investigate ties between the so-called “Shoe Bomber”, British terrorist Richard Reid and the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.

A terrorist group connected to Al-Qaeda as well as to ISI, Pakistan’s military secret services, claimed responsibility for taking Daniel Pearl hostage and making demands on the United States.

Daniel was murdered soon after.

His martyrdom is a symbol.

He was assassinated as a free man, as a journalist seeking to establish the truth, as an American, as a Jew. 

He was the first hostage whose beheading was staged and filmed by Islamist terrorists.

Many more were to follow.

In July 2002, three accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment while the mastermind of the crime, Ahmed Omar Saïd Cheikh, was condemned to death. He has been in prison since that time.

A few wekkes ago, the High Court of Pakistan’s Sindh province commuted Omar's sentence to 7 years imprisonment and consequently ordered him and his accomplices to be set free!

Daniel Pearl's parents  have filed a petition and appealed to the Supreme Court.

We do hope that justice will prevail !

Our commitment has always been to defend freedom of thought and freedom of expression for the citizens of Pakistan.  We supported  Christian prisoner  Asia Bibi throughout her ordeal. We defend terror victims, democrats,  victims of the Blasphemy Law, ethnic and religious minorities submitted to repression.

Impunity granted to Daniel Pearl's murderers would be a terrible signal : murderers would roam freely whereas innocent people who neither killed nor harmed anyone would stay in prison and risk death.

This just cannot be !

First signatories :

Elisabeth Badinter, philosopher

Boualem Sansal, Algerian writer

Françoise Rudetzki, founder of SOS Attentats, member of Fonds de garantie des victimes

Fazal Rehman Afridi, Pakistanese journalist

Anne-Isabelle Tollet, journalist

Maya Nahum, journalist

Annie Sugier, president of  Ligue du Droit International des Femmes

Arnold Roth, chairman, The Malki Foundation, Jerusalem

Bernice Dubois, Honorary president of Commission française pour le Lobby Européen des Femmes

Cherifa Kheddar,  president of association Djazairouna des Familles Victimes du Terrorisme Islamiste

Monique Dental, president of Réseau Féministe "Ruptures".

Béatrice Szwec, president of MPCT, Mouvement pour la Paix et Contre le Terrorisme

Huguette Chomski Magnis,  spokesperson of International Alliance Against Terrorism