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Video shows four activists held in Iraq

(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-30 09:01

The corner of the video showed two crossed black swords and the name of the insurgent group written in red Arabic script.

Christian Peacemaker Teams issued a statement saying the four were working on behalf of Iraqi civilians. The group said it has had a team in Iraq since October 2002, working with U.S. and Iraqi detainees and training others in nonviolent intervention and human rights documentation.

Kember and another person were part of a visiting delegation, while two members of the group's Iraq-based staff also were taken, the statement said.

The group said on its Web site that it was founded in the mid-1980s and is supported by Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Church Canada, Church of the Brethren and Friends United Meeting.

It places teams of trained peacemakers in crisis situations and militarized areas, and those teams work with civilians to document abuses and develop nonviolent alternatives to war.

The group said the team in Iraq was working on documenting detainee abuses, referring Iraqis to human rights organizations and accompanying Iraqi civilians as they interact with coalition troops and Iraqi government officials.

Kember, a retired professor, is a longtime peace activist who once fretted publicly that he was taking the easy way out by protesting in safety at home while British soldiers risked their lives in Iraq.

The U.S. Embassy has confirmed that an American is missing in Iraq — presumably one of the aid workers. A Canadian official has said two Canadians were in the group.

The statement said those taken hostage knew the risks when they went to Iraq.

The organization said it "does not advocate the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a conflict situation."

In Barcelona, Spain, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had contacted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hohshyar Zebari about Kember's abduction, and that Zebari "pledged every assistance from the Iraqi government."

Osthoff and her driver have been missing since Friday and, "according to current information, we have to assume it is a kidnapping," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin.

She added that the Foreign Ministry has set up a crisis team to help secure the pair's release.

"The German government will do everything in its power to bring both back to safety," Merkel said.

Osthoff, 43, is a fluent Arab speaker and a trained archaeologist who has worked since 1998 for the Munich-based management consulting firm FaktorM, which said on its Web site that she has "organized and supported the distribution of aid goods in Iraq since 1991." She was in Iraq working to help German organizations distribute medicine and medical supplies.