Father of Slain U.S. Reporter Appeals to Muslims

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslims should turn away from extremists who are trying to hijack their religion and condemn them for the murders of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, the father of one of the slain Americans said in an appeal on Tuesday.
"I am not directing this letter to the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is thought to have beheaded Nicholas Berg, or to Osama bin Laden," Judea Pearl wrote in an emotional commentary published in the Wall Street Journal.

"I am speaking to those who can win the minds of the young and faithful to the side of hope: intellectual leaders who pride themselves on peace and modernity, and clerics, imams and mullahs who have been voicing concern over the hijacking of Islam by a minority of anti-Islamic extremists."

Pearl said Berg's videotaped beheading last week was "a similar attack on humanity" to the 2002 murder of his son, Daniel, whose throat was cut by Islamic militants in Pakistan.

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