IRAQ: Iraq hostage Ms Margaret Hassan has urged Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq and free Iraqi women prisoners, Al Jazeera reported yesterday.
The Arabic television channel aired a video showing Hassan, who was seized by unknown kidnappers in Baghdad last week, standing in a dimly lit room.
"Please release the women prisoners from the prison in Iraq," said a tired looking Hassan, director of the Care International charity in Iraq. The rest of her comments could not be heard clearly. Unlike several videos of hostages kidnapped in Iraq, there were no militants or banners appearing in the short footage aired by Al Jazeera.
The latest video showing Ms Hassan came as a contingent of British troops moved north from Basra to free up US troops for a widely expected attack on the rebel-held city of Falluja. "She appealed to ... British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq and not deploy them in Baghdad. She asked the British government to release Iraqi women from prisons," Al Jazeera said. The television said Dublin-born Ms Hassan also asked Care International employees to end their operations in Iraq. The charity suspended its work in the country after Hassan was kidnapped.
The video came as Japan's prime minister insisted yesterday that Japan would not withdraw its troops from Iraq despite a threat by a militant group to behead a Japanese hostage unless Tokyo pulled them out.
The hostage, taken in Iraq by a group led by al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been identified as Mr Shosei Koda (24).
Al-Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq gave the Japanese government 48 hours to withdraw its troops from Iraq, "or this infidel will meet the same fate as Berg ... and the other infidels," the group said. - (Reuters)
Alison Healy adds: The Taoiseach should "keep his gob shut" on the case of Ms Margaret Hassan, the Irish-born hostage kidnapped in Baghdad, former Labour MP Mr George Galloway said yesterday.
The MP, who was expelled from the Labour Party over his views on Iraq, said the Government was "deeply complicit" in the invasion of Iraq because it allowed US soldiers to use Shannon Airport. "It would be better if Tony Blair and Jack Straw kept their gobs shut about the Hassan case because frankly they are only doing the woman's case harm by intervening in it.
"And I'm sorry to tell you that, as someone who sat many times at Celtic Park with Bertie Ahern, he should keep his gob shut too because the Iraqi resistance knows full well that the Ahern Government is deeply complicit in the attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"They know how 1,000 soldiers a day are reaching their country to occupy and kill them, and they know that that route is through Shannon Airport in Ireland."
Mr Galloway was speaking in Trinity College, Dublin, at a meeting organised by the One World Society, the Socialist Workers' Student Society and the Irish Anti-War Movement.
He is a key figure in the British-based Stop The War Coalition.
Earlier this year he accepted libel damages from a US newspaper over a story which alleged he took $10 million to support Saddam Hussein. A similar case against the Daily Telegraph is due to be heard next month.
Yesterday, Mr Galloway said that,while Ms Hassan was clearly an innocent civilian, others were collaborating with the occupation of Iraq if they came to do work such as building military bases. "You can't expect a resistance movement to exempt those who have come with the invader to help the invader in his task."