Daniel Pearl
Encyclopedia
Daniel Pearl was an American
journalist
who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda
.
At the time of his kidnapping
, Pearl served as the South Asia
Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal
, and was based in Mumbai
, India
. He went to Pakistan
as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and Al-Qaeda. He was subsequently beheaded
by his captors.
In July 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl's abduction and murder.
In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that he had personally beheaded Pearl. Current al-Qaeda
leader Saif al-Adel
has also been connected with the murder of Daniel Pearl.
, and grew up in the upscale Encino district of Los Angeles, California
, where he attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School
. His father, Judea Pearl
, is currently a professor
of Computer Science
and Statistics
and director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at UCLA. His mother Ruth is of Iraqi Jewish
descent.
The history of the family and its connections to Israel are described by Judea Pearl in the LA Times article, Roots in the Holy Land.
Danny, as he was known throughout his life, attended Stanford University
from 1981 to 1985, where he stood out as a communications major with Phi Beta Kappa honors, a member of the Alpha Delta Phi
Fraternity, and co-founder of a student newspaper called the Stanford Commentator. Pearl graduated from Stanford with a B.A.
in Communications, after which he spent a summer as a Pulliam Fellow intern at the Indianapolis Star, and a winter bussing tables as a ski bum in Idaho
. Following a trip to the then-Soviet Union
, China
, and Europe
, he joined the North Adams Transcript
and the Berkshire Eagle in western Massachusetts
, then moved on to the San Francisco Business Times.
Pearl began at the Wall Street Journal's Atlanta bureau in 1990, moving to the Washington, D.C.
, bureau in 1993 to cover telecommunications, and then to the London
bureau in 1996. He wrote articles such as the October 1994 story of a Stradivarius
violin
allegedly found on a highway on-ramp, and a June 2000 story about Iranian pop music
. His most notable investigations covered the ethnic wars in the Balkans
, where he discovered that charges of one alleged genocide
committed in Kosovo
were unsubstantiated, and the American missile attack on a supposed military facility in Khartoum
, which he proved to be a pharmaceutical factory.
Later, he met and married Mariane Van Neyenhoff
. Their son, Adam Daniel Pearl, was born in Paris, France on May 28, 2002, almost four months after Pearl's death.
Mubarak Ali Gilani
at the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi
, Pearl was kidnapped near the Metropole Hotel by a militant group calling itself The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. The group claimed Pearl was a spy and—using a Hotmail
e-mail address—sent the United States a range of demands, including the freeing of all Pakistani terror
detainees, and the release of a halted U.S. shipment of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani government.
The message read:
Photos of Pearl handcuffed with a gun at his head and holding up a newspaper were attached. There was no response to pleas from Pearl's editor, nor from his wife Mariane.
, about 30 miles north of Karachi. When the police found Pearl's remains, Abdul Sattar Edhi
, one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan, arrived promptly on the scene, personally collected all ten body parts, and took them to the morgue. Pearl's body was returned to the U.S., and was interred in the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles, California
.
No autopsy
was performed. The subsequent video (see next section) made the sequence of events clear.
On February 21, 2002, a videotape was released titled The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl. The video shows Pearl's mutilated body, and lasts 3 minutes and 36 seconds.
The English
transcript of the text reads :
Pearl continued to talk in the video:
A caption in Arabic
is shown along the way. Pictures of dead Muslim
s and similar scenes are superimposed around the image of Pearl. Other images shown are those of U.S. President George W. Bush
shaking hands with Israel
i Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon
, and those of Palestinian
civilians killed by Israeli soldiers–including that of a Palestinian
boy Muhammad al-Dura–of whose death the Israeli Defence Force was accused.
In the video, Pearl's body is shown naked from the waist up, with his throat slit at about 1 minute and 55 seconds into the video. A man then decapitates Pearl.
A few more images are shown near the image of Pearl's head. The last 90 seconds of the video show the list of demands scrolling, superimposed on an image of Pearl's severed head being held by the hair.
The English transcript of the text reads:
would have an adverse effect on the investigation.
Three suspects were caught after the IP address
of those who sent the ransom
e-mail was traced by the Karachi
police. The arrests were carried out after investigation by Pakistani detective Mir Zubair Mahmood, assisted by Pakistan CIA computer experts. The mastermind of the kidnapping, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
, surrendered to a former ISI
officer, Brig. Ijaz Shah
, who concealed Sheikh's whereabouts from the Karachi police for a week. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had been in an India
n prison in connection with 1994 Kidnappings of Western tourists in India
, and had been freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814
in December 1999.
On March 21, 2002, in Pakistan
, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other suspects were charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. They were convicted on July 15, 2002, and Sheikh was sentenced to death. Sheikh has appealed the sentence, but hearings in his case were postponed repeatedly—over 30 times—and no definitive date had been set.
In his book In the Line of Fire
, then-President of Pakistan
Pervez Musharraf
stated that Sheikh was an agent of MI6, who at some point became a double agent
.
On March 10, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged Al Qaeda operative reported to be third in command under Osama Bin Laden
, claimed responsibility, before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal
, for the murder of Daniel Pearl. He claimed to have beheaded him.
In a confession read during his Tribunal hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on record repeating:
This confession repeated word for word the phrasing leaked in 2002 from his interrogation in a clandestine CIA interrogation center
.
On March 19, 2007, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh's lawyers cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession in defense of their client.
They said they had always acknowledged that their client played a role in Pearl's murder, but they had always argued that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the actual murderer. They plan for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession to play a central role in their appeal of their client's death sentence
.
According to an investigative report published in January 2011 by Georgetown University
, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
used vein matching
to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through a "bulging vein" running across his hand. Federal officials had been concerned that the confession obtained though waterboarding would not hold up in court and used this forensic technique to bolster their case.
The Daniel Pearl Foundation was formed by Pearl's family and friends to continue Pearl's mission, and to address what they consider the root causes of his death, in the spirit, style, and principles that shaped Pearl's work and character. Daniel Pearl World Music Days have been held worldwide since 2002, and have promoted over 1,500 concerts in over 60 countries.
Pearl's widow, Mariane Pearl
, wrote the memoir A Mighty Heart
, which tells the full story of Pearl and more about his life. The book was adapted into a film
starring Dan Futterman
as Daniel Pearl, Angelina Jolie
as Mariane Pearl, Irfan Khan
, Archie Panjabi, and Will Patton
.
On September 1, 2003, a book titled Who Killed Daniel Pearl? was published, written by Bernard-Henri Lévy
. The book, which the author characterized as an "investigative novel", stirred controversy for some of its speculative conclusions about the killing, for some of its characterizations of Pakistan, and for the author's decision to engage in an exercise of fictionalizing Pearl's thoughts in the final moments of his life. Lévy was criticized for the book.
This book is being adapted into a film directed by Tod Williams
and starring Josh Lucas
, focusing on the last few days of Daniel Pearl's life.
HBO Films
produced a 79-minute documentary titled The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl. It premiered on HBO on October 10, 2006. The documentary chronicles Pearl's life and death, and features extensive interviews with his immediate family. It is narrated by Christiane Amanpour
, and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
Pearl's parents edited and published a collection of responses sent to them from around the globe, entitled I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004). At one point on the video, Pearl said: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish," after which Pearl added one obscure detail, that a street in Israel's Bnei Brak is named after his great grandfather, who was one of the founders of the town. The family has written that it understands this last detail authenticates Daniel's own voice and demonstrates his willingness to claim his identity. Judea Pearl has written that at first this statement surprised him, but he later understood it to be a reference to the town-building tradition of his family contrasted with the destructive aims of his captors. Judea Pearl then enlarged the idea by inviting responses from artists, government leaders, authors, journalists, scientists, scholars, rabbi
s, and others. All wrote personal responses to what they thought upon hearing that these were Pearl's last words. Some responses are one sentence, others several pages.
The book is organized by five themes: Identity; Heritage; Covenant, Chosenness, and Faith; Humanity and Ethnicity; Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) and Justice. Contributors include Theodore Bikel
, Alan Dershowitz
, Kirk Douglas
, Ruth Bader Ginsburg
, Larry King
, Amos Oz
, Shimon Peres
, Daniel Schorr
, Elie Wiesel
, Peter Yarrow
, and A.B. Yehoshua.
's student news magazine, titled the Pearl, is named in honor of Daniel Pearl.
In 2002, Pearl posthumously received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Award from Colby College
and in 2007, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award from the Houston Holocaust Museum
.
In 2005, The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with the École de Journalisme de Sciences Po, gave the first Daniel Pearl Prize to Louis-Étienne Vigneault-Dubois from Canada, at a ceremony held on June 10 in Paris.
American minimalist
composer Steve Reich
wrote his 2006 work Daniel Variations
, jointly commissioned by the Daniel Pearl Foundation and the Barbican Centre
, which interweaves Pearl's own words with verses from the Book of Daniel
.
On April 16, 2007, Pearl was added to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
as the first non-Holocaust victim. His father gave his consent for the induction in order to remind generations to come that "The forces of barbarity and evil are still active in our world. The Holocaust didn't finish in 1945." Journalist Bradley Burston
criticized the addition of a post-Holocaust victim to the memorial, saying "it diminishes the uniqueness of the Holocaust".
In May 2007, the Communications Technology Magnet School at Birmingham High School
was renamed the Daniel Pearl Journalism and Communications Magnet
.
In July 2009, Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS) became a stand-alone high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Shortly after Pearl's death, his parents founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation
. The foundation's mission is to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and dialogue. The honorary board of the Daniel Pearl Foundation includes Christiane Amanpour
, former President Bill Clinton
, Abdul Sattar Edhi
, Danny Gill, John L. Hennessy
, Ted Koppel
, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Sari Nusseibeh
, Mariane Pearl
, Itzhak Perlman
, Harold Schulweiss, Craig Sherman, Paul Steiger, and Elie Wiesel
.
The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA was established by the foundation in 2002. Christopher Hitchens
delivered the most recent lecture on March 3, 2010. Other lecturers have included Anderson Cooper
; David Brooks
; Ted Koppel
; Larry King
; Jeff Greenfield
; Daniel Schorr
and Thomas Friedman
.
In western Massachusetts, with help from the newspapers there for which Pearl worked early in his career (the North Adams Transcript
and the Berkshire Eagle), friends of Pearl established the Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship, awarded annually beginning in 2003.
In East Brunswick Township, Temple B'nai Shalom renamed their Hebrew School 'The Daniel Pearl Education Center' after Pearl. Additionally, the Synagogue has created a "Daniel Pearl Education Scholarship" in his honor.
Since 2003, Stanford's Department of Communication has awarded a paid summer internship with The Wall Street Journal, known as the "Daniel Pearl Journalism Internship." Its most recent recipient was Devin Banerjee, a former editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily
.
On December 10, 2007, President George W. Bush and Laura Bush
invited Ruth and Judea Pearl, parents of Daniel Pearl to the
White House Chanukah
reception, to light the menorah that once belonged to Daniel's great grandparents, Chaim and Rosa Pearl,
who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel in 1924 to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.
On May 19, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama enacted the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act
, which protects US journalists around the world. The act is also designed to use tools from the Secretary of State to ensure that freedom of press is upheld in other countries.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
.
At the time of his kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
, Pearl served as the South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, and was based in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He went to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and Al-Qaeda. He was subsequently beheaded
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
by his captors.
In July 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with links to various Islamist militant organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, al-Qaeda, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Taliban.He was arrested and served time in prison for...
, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl's abduction and murder.
In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that he had personally beheaded Pearl. Current al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
leader Saif al-Adel
Saif al-Adel
Saif al-Adel is an Egyptian explosives expert and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.Adel is under indictment for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa...
has also been connected with the murder of Daniel Pearl.
Early life
Daniel Pearl was born in Princeton, New JerseyPrinceton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, and grew up in the upscale Encino district of Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, where he attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School
Birmingham High School
Birmingham Community Charter High School is a public coeducational high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States...
. His father, Judea Pearl
Judea Pearl
Judea Pearl is a computer scientist and philosopher, best known for developing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks ....
, is currently a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and Statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at UCLA. His mother Ruth is of Iraqi Jewish
History of the Jews in Iraq
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....
descent.
The history of the family and its connections to Israel are described by Judea Pearl in the LA Times article, Roots in the Holy Land.
Danny, as he was known throughout his life, attended Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
from 1981 to 1985, where he stood out as a communications major with Phi Beta Kappa honors, a member of the Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi is a Greek-letter social college fraternity and the fourth-oldest continuous Greek-letter fraternity in the United States and Canada. Alpha Delta Phi was founded on October 29, 1832 by Samuel Eells at Hamilton College and includes former U.S. Presidents, Chief Justices of the U.S....
Fraternity, and co-founder of a student newspaper called the Stanford Commentator. Pearl graduated from Stanford with a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Communications, after which he spent a summer as a Pulliam Fellow intern at the Indianapolis Star, and a winter bussing tables as a ski bum in Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
. Following a trip to the then-Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, he joined the North Adams Transcript
North Adams Transcript
The North Adams Transcript is a daily newspaper, published Monday through Saturday in North Adams, Massachusetts.Branded as "The Voice of the Northern Berkshires Since 1843," the Transcript covers North Adams and Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, Hancock, Lanesborough, New Ashford, and...
and the Berkshire Eagle in western Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, then moved on to the San Francisco Business Times.
Pearl began at the Wall Street Journal's Atlanta bureau in 1990, moving to the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, bureau in 1993 to cover telecommunications, and then to the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
bureau in 1996. He wrote articles such as the October 1994 story of a Stradivarius
Stradivarius
The name Stradivarius is associated with violins built by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial...
violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
allegedly found on a highway on-ramp, and a June 2000 story about Iranian pop music
Persian pop music
Persian pop music refers to pop music with songs in the Persian language or other regional languages of Iran and Afghanistan...
. His most notable investigations covered the ethnic wars in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, where he discovered that charges of one alleged genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
committed in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
were unsubstantiated, and the American missile attack on a supposed military facility in Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...
, which he proved to be a pharmaceutical factory.
Later, he met and married Mariane Van Neyenhoff
Mariane Pearl
Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.-Life and career:Pearl was born in Clichy,...
. Their son, Adam Daniel Pearl, was born in Paris, France on May 28, 2002, almost four months after Pearl's death.
Abduction
On January 23, 2002, on his way to what he thought was an interview with SheikhSheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
Mubarak Ali Gilani
Mubarak Ali Gilani
Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani is a Hanafi Sufi cleric from Pakistan and founder of the Muslims of the Americas organization...
at the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Pearl was kidnapped near the Metropole Hotel by a militant group calling itself The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. The group claimed Pearl was a spy and—using a Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
e-mail address—sent the United States a range of demands, including the freeing of all Pakistani terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
detainees, and the release of a halted U.S. shipment of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani government.
The message read:
"We give you one more day if America will not meet our demands we will kill Daniel. Then this cycle will continue and no American journalist could enter Pakistan."
Photos of Pearl handcuffed with a gun at his head and holding up a newspaper were attached. There was no response to pleas from Pearl's editor, nor from his wife Mariane.
Beheading
Nine days later, Pearl was beheaded. On May 16 his severed head and decomposed body were found cut into ten pieces, and buried—along with the jacket of a tracksuit Pearl was wearing when photographed by his kidnappers—in a shallow grave at GadapGadap
Gadap is one of the neighbourhoods of Gadap Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.There are several ethnic groups including Muhajirs, Punjabis, Sindhis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Memons, Bohras, Ismailis, etc. Over 99% of the population is Muslim. The population of Gadap Town is...
, about 30 miles north of Karachi. When the police found Pearl's remains, Abdul Sattar Edhi
Abdul Sattar Edhi
Abdul Sattar Edhi, NI , or Maulana Edhi, as he is often known, is a Pakistani philanthropist. He is head of the Edhi Foundation, the world's largest ambulance help service and charity. Together with his wife, Bilquis Edhi, he received the 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. He is also...
, one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan, arrived promptly on the scene, personally collected all ten body parts, and took them to the morgue. Pearl's body was returned to the U.S., and was interred in the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery
Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries refers to two Jewish cemeteries in the Los Angeles, California metropolitan area. The original cemetery is located at 5950 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. The cemetery was originally established in 1953 by the neighboring Forest...
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
No autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
was performed. The subsequent video (see next section) made the sequence of events clear.
The Pearl video
The English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
transcript of the text reads :
- "My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California USA. I come from, uh, on my father's side the family is Zionist. My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish. My family follows JudaismJudaismJudaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. We've made numerous family visits to IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Back in the town of Bnei Brak there is a street named after my great grandfather Chaim Pearl who is one of the founders of the town."
Pearl continued to talk in the video:
- "Not knowing anything about my situation... not being able to communicate with anybody... only now do I think about some of the people in Guantanamo Bay must be in a similar situation... and I've come to realize that..."
- "...this is the sort of problem that Americans are going to have anywhere in the world now."
- "We can't be secure, we can't walk around free as long as our government policies are continuing and we allow them to continue."
- "We Americans cannot continue to bear the consequences of our government's actions, such as the unconditional support given to the state of Israel. Twenty-four uses of the veto power to justify massacres of children. And the support for the dictatorial regimes in the Arab and left-wing world. And also the continued American military presence in Afghanistan."
A caption in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
is shown along the way. Pictures of dead Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s and similar scenes are superimposed around the image of Pearl. Other images shown are those of U.S. President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
shaking hands with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
, and those of Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
civilians killed by Israeli soldiers–including that of a Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
boy Muhammad al-Dura–of whose death the Israeli Defence Force was accused.
In the video, Pearl's body is shown naked from the waist up, with his throat slit at about 1 minute and 55 seconds into the video. A man then decapitates Pearl.
A few more images are shown near the image of Pearl's head. The last 90 seconds of the video show the list of demands scrolling, superimposed on an image of Pearl's severed head being held by the hair.
The English transcript of the text reads:
- National Movement For The Restoration Of PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
Sovereignity (NMRPS)
- We still demand the following:
- The immediate release of U.S. held prisoners in Guatinamo Bay, Cuba [sic].
- The return of Pakistani prisoners to Pakistan.
- The immediate end of U.S. presence in Pakistan.
- The delivery of F-16 planes that pakistan [sic] had paid for and never received.
- We asure [sic] Americans that they shall never be safe on the MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Land of Pakistan.
- And if our demands are not met this scene shall be repeated again and again...
Arrests
Daniel's father expressed concern in February 2002 that his son's Israeli citizenshipCitizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
would have an adverse effect on the investigation.
Three suspects were caught after the IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
of those who sent the ransom
Ransom
Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.In an early German law, a similar concept was called bad influence...
e-mail was traced by the Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
police. The arrests were carried out after investigation by Pakistani detective Mir Zubair Mahmood, assisted by Pakistan CIA computer experts. The mastermind of the kidnapping, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with links to various Islamist militant organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, al-Qaeda, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Taliban.He was arrested and served time in prison for...
, surrendered to a former ISI
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
officer, Brig. Ijaz Shah
Ijaz Shah
Brigadier Ijaz Shah is a retired Pakistan Army officer and the former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan, and a long-term close associate of Pervez Musharraf, and a former Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence operator. He resigned as the IB chief on 17 March 2008...
, who concealed Sheikh's whereabouts from the Karachi police for a week. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had been in an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n prison in connection with 1994 Kidnappings of Western tourists in India
1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India
The 1994 Kidnappings of Western tourists in India was the abduction of four tourists in New Delhi, India on October 20, 1994 by Kashmiri separatists.-Background:...
, and had been freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814
Indian Airlines Flight 814
Indian Airlines Flight 814 commonly known as IC 814 was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 en route from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India on Friday, December 24, 1999, when it was hijacked...
in December 1999.
On March 21, 2002, in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other suspects were charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. They were convicted on July 15, 2002, and Sheikh was sentenced to death. Sheikh has appealed the sentence, but hearings in his case were postponed repeatedly—over 30 times—and no definitive date had been set.
In his book In the Line of Fire
In the Line of Fire (book)
In the Line of Fire: A Memoir is a book that was written by former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf and first published on September 25, 2006...
, then-President of Pakistan
President of Pakistan
The President of Pakistan is the head of state, as well as figurehead, of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Recently passed an XVIII Amendment , Pakistan has a parliamentary democratic system of government. According to the Constitution, the President is chosen by the Electoral College to serve a...
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
stated that Sheikh was an agent of MI6, who at some point became a double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
.
On March 10, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged Al Qaeda operative reported to be third in command under Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
, claimed responsibility, before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...
, for the murder of Daniel Pearl. He claimed to have beheaded him.
In a confession read during his Tribunal hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on record repeating:
I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.
This confession repeated word for word the phrasing leaked in 2002 from his interrogation in a clandestine CIA interrogation center
Black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It...
.
On March 19, 2007, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh's lawyers cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession in defense of their client.
They said they had always acknowledged that their client played a role in Pearl's murder, but they had always argued that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the actual murderer. They plan for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession to play a central role in their appeal of their client's death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
.
According to an investigative report published in January 2011 by Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
used vein matching
Vein matching
Vein matching, also called vascular technology, is a technique of biometric identification through the analysis of the patterns of blood vessels visible from the surface of the skin...
to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through a "bulging vein" running across his hand. Federal officials had been concerned that the confession obtained though waterboarding would not hold up in court and used this forensic technique to bolster their case.
Aftermath
A collection of Pearl's writings (At Home in the World) was published posthumously in 2002, demonstrating his "extraordinary skill as a writer" and his "eye for quirky stories—many of which appeared in The Wall Street Journals "middle column". Six of these stories were adapted by composer Russell Steinberg into an album: Stories from My Favorite Planet, a trio for violin, piano, and reader.The Daniel Pearl Foundation was formed by Pearl's family and friends to continue Pearl's mission, and to address what they consider the root causes of his death, in the spirit, style, and principles that shaped Pearl's work and character. Daniel Pearl World Music Days have been held worldwide since 2002, and have promoted over 1,500 concerts in over 60 countries.
Pearl's widow, Mariane Pearl
Mariane Pearl
Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.-Life and career:Pearl was born in Clichy,...
, wrote the memoir A Mighty Heart
A Mighty Heart
A Mighty Heart is a memoir by Mariane Pearl, the widow of the slain American journalist Daniel Pearl.The book has been reviewed by, among others, The Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Spectator and The New York Review of Books.A Mighty Heart has been made into a film, A Mighty...
, which tells the full story of Pearl and more about his life. The book was adapted into a film
A Mighty Heart (film)
A Mighty Heart is a 2007 drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom; It is an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's memoir, A Mighty Heart. Although initially a financial failure, A Mighty Heart was met with relatively positive reviews from both critics and viewers alike.The film was screened out of...
starring Dan Futterman
Dan Futterman
Daniel Futterman is an American actor and screenwriter. Although he is known for several high-profile acting roles, including Val Goldman in the film The Birdcage, and Vincent Gray on the CBS television series Judging Amy, he is also a screenwriter...
as Daniel Pearl, Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
as Mariane Pearl, Irfan Khan
Irfan Khan (actor)
Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan, popularly known as Irrfan Khan , is an Indian actor in film, television and theatre. He received recognition for his roles in The Warrior , Maqbool , Haasil , The Namesake , A Mighty Heart , Life in a.....
, Archie Panjabi, and Will Patton
Will Patton
William Rankin "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Life and career:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University...
.
On September 1, 2003, a book titled Who Killed Daniel Pearl? was published, written by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...
. The book, which the author characterized as an "investigative novel", stirred controversy for some of its speculative conclusions about the killing, for some of its characterizations of Pakistan, and for the author's decision to engage in an exercise of fictionalizing Pearl's thoughts in the final moments of his life. Lévy was criticized for the book.
This book is being adapted into a film directed by Tod Williams
Tod Williams (filmmaker)
Tod Culpan "Kip" Williams is an American director, producer and screenwriter.-Life and career:Williams was born and raised in New York City, the son of architect Tod Williams and a mother who was a dancer...
and starring Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...
, focusing on the last few days of Daniel Pearl's life.
HBO Films
HBO Films
HBO Films is a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. While much of HBO Films' output is created directly for the television market, such as the film Witness Protection and the mini-series Band of Brothers, Pacific, Generation Kill and Angels in...
produced a 79-minute documentary titled The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl. It premiered on HBO on October 10, 2006. The documentary chronicles Pearl's life and death, and features extensive interviews with his immediate family. It is narrated by Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour, CBE is anchor of ABC News's This Week and formerly chief international correspondent at CNN, where she worked for 27 years. She is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Early years:...
, and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
Pearl's parents edited and published a collection of responses sent to them from around the globe, entitled I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004). At one point on the video, Pearl said: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish," after which Pearl added one obscure detail, that a street in Israel's Bnei Brak is named after his great grandfather, who was one of the founders of the town. The family has written that it understands this last detail authenticates Daniel's own voice and demonstrates his willingness to claim his identity. Judea Pearl has written that at first this statement surprised him, but he later understood it to be a reference to the town-building tradition of his family contrasted with the destructive aims of his captors. Judea Pearl then enlarged the idea by inviting responses from artists, government leaders, authors, journalists, scientists, scholars, rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s, and others. All wrote personal responses to what they thought upon hearing that these were Pearl's last words. Some responses are one sentence, others several pages.
The book is organized by five themes: Identity; Heritage; Covenant, Chosenness, and Faith; Humanity and Ethnicity; Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) and Justice. Contributors include Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel
Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....
, Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
, Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
, Amos Oz
Amos Oz
Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva....
, Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres
GCMG is the ninth President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as the eighth Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...
, Daniel Schorr
Daniel Schorr
Daniel Louis Schorr was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio...
, Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
, Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...
, and A.B. Yehoshua.
Legacy
Soka University of AmericaSoka University of America
Soka University of America is a university located in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. It describes its mission as the fostering of a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life—with an emphasis on principles of pacifism, human rights, and the creative...
's student news magazine, titled the Pearl, is named in honor of Daniel Pearl.
In 2002, Pearl posthumously received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Elijah P. Lovejoy
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist. He was murdered by an opposition mob in Alton, Illinois during their attack on his warehouse to destroy his press and abolitionist materials.Lovejoy's father was a Congregational minister...
Award from Colby College
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...
and in 2007, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award from the Houston Holocaust Museum
Holocaust Museum Houston
The Holocaust Museum Houston, is located in Houston, Texas and was opened in 1996. The museum is located in the Houston Museum District.The museum is the fourth largest Holocaust memorial museum in the United States. The museum's mission is to make people aware of the dangers which prejudice,...
.
In 2005, The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with the École de Journalisme de Sciences Po, gave the first Daniel Pearl Prize to Louis-Étienne Vigneault-Dubois from Canada, at a ceremony held on June 10 in Paris.
American minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
composer Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
wrote his 2006 work Daniel Variations
Daniel Variations
Daniel Variations is a composition by Steve Reich written in 2006. It is scored for two each of soprano and tenor voices, clarinets, four pianos, string quartet and percussion...
, jointly commissioned by the Daniel Pearl Foundation and the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
, which interweaves Pearl's own words with verses from the Book of Daniel
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...
.
On April 16, 2007, Pearl was added to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach
The Holocaust Memorial of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation is a Holocaust memorial at 1933-1945 Meridian Avenue, in Miami Beach, Florida. It was conceived by a committee of Holocaust survivors in 1984, formally established in 1985 as the Holocaust Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization...
as the first non-Holocaust victim. His father gave his consent for the induction in order to remind generations to come that "The forces of barbarity and evil are still active in our world. The Holocaust didn't finish in 1945." Journalist Bradley Burston
Bradley Burston
Bradley Burston is an American-born Israeli journalist, a columnist for Haaretz, and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com, which publishes his blog, "A Special Place in Hell"....
criticized the addition of a post-Holocaust victim to the memorial, saying "it diminishes the uniqueness of the Holocaust".
In May 2007, the Communications Technology Magnet School at Birmingham High School
Birmingham High School
Birmingham Community Charter High School is a public coeducational high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States...
was renamed the Daniel Pearl Journalism and Communications Magnet
Daniel Pearl Journalism and Communications Magnet
Daniel Pearl Magnet High School is a magnet school within the Los Angeles Unified School District in Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, California, near Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley.It is the smallest high school in LAUSD...
.
In July 2009, Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS) became a stand-alone high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Shortly after Pearl's death, his parents founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation
Daniel Pearl Foundation
The Daniel Pearl Foundation is a foundation based in the United States. The foundation was formed by his parents Ruth and Judea Pearl after musician and Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in 2002...
. The foundation's mission is to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and dialogue. The honorary board of the Daniel Pearl Foundation includes Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour, CBE is anchor of ABC News's This Week and formerly chief international correspondent at CNN, where she worked for 27 years. She is a Board Member at the IWMF .-Early years:...
, former President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Abdul Sattar Edhi
Abdul Sattar Edhi
Abdul Sattar Edhi, NI , or Maulana Edhi, as he is often known, is a Pakistani philanthropist. He is head of the Edhi Foundation, the world's largest ambulance help service and charity. Together with his wife, Bilquis Edhi, he received the 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. He is also...
, Danny Gill, John L. Hennessy
John L. Hennessy
John LeRoy Hennessy is an American computer scientist and academician. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. and is the 10th President of Stanford University.-Background:...
, Ted Koppel
Ted Koppel
Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh , and raised in Jerusalem, is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem...
, Mariane Pearl
Mariane Pearl
Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.-Life and career:Pearl was born in Clichy,...
, Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
, Harold Schulweiss, Craig Sherman, Paul Steiger, and Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
.
The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA was established by the foundation in 2002. Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
delivered the most recent lecture on March 3, 2010. Other lecturers have included Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...
; David Brooks
David Brooks (journalist)
David Brooks is a Canadian-born political and cultural commentator who considers himself a moderate and writes for the New York Times...
; Ted Koppel
Ted Koppel
Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
; Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
; Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Greenfield is an American television journalist and author.-Biography:He was born in New York City to parents Benjamin and Helen. He grew up in Manhattan and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1960. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in...
; Daniel Schorr
Daniel Schorr
Daniel Louis Schorr was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio...
and Thomas Friedman
Thomas Friedman
Thomas Lauren Friedman is an American journalist, columnist and author. He writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, and environmental issues and has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.-Personal...
.
In western Massachusetts, with help from the newspapers there for which Pearl worked early in his career (the North Adams Transcript
North Adams Transcript
The North Adams Transcript is a daily newspaper, published Monday through Saturday in North Adams, Massachusetts.Branded as "The Voice of the Northern Berkshires Since 1843," the Transcript covers North Adams and Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, Hancock, Lanesborough, New Ashford, and...
and the Berkshire Eagle), friends of Pearl established the Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship, awarded annually beginning in 2003.
In East Brunswick Township, Temple B'nai Shalom renamed their Hebrew School 'The Daniel Pearl Education Center' after Pearl. Additionally, the Synagogue has created a "Daniel Pearl Education Scholarship" in his honor.
Since 2003, Stanford's Department of Communication has awarded a paid summer internship with The Wall Street Journal, known as the "Daniel Pearl Journalism Internship." Its most recent recipient was Devin Banerjee, a former editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily
The Stanford Daily
The Stanford Daily is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. The Daily is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the University was founded in 1892.The paper publishes weekdays...
.
On December 10, 2007, President George W. Bush and Laura Bush
invited Ruth and Judea Pearl, parents of Daniel Pearl to the
White House Chanukah
White House Hanukkah Party
The White House Hanukkah Party is an annual reception held at the White House and hosted by the President and First Lady to recognize and celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. The tradition was established in 2001, during the administration of George W...
reception, to light the menorah that once belonged to Daniel's great grandparents, Chaim and Rosa Pearl,
who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel in 1924 to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.
On May 19, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama enacted the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act
Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act
The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act requires the United States Department of State to expand its scrutiny of news media intimidation and freedom of the press restrictions during its annual report on human rights in each country...
, which protects US journalists around the world. The act is also designed to use tools from the Secretary of State to ensure that freedom of press is upheld in other countries.
See also
- Islamic Terrorism
- Amjad Hussain Farooqi
- 2006 Fox journalists kidnapping2006 Fox journalists kidnappingFox News Channel journalists Olaf Wiig , a New Zealand photojournalist, and Steve Centanni, an American reporter, were kidnapped in the Gaza Strip by the Holy Jihad Brigades, a previously unknown group of Palestinian militants, from their TV van near the Palestinian security services' headquarters...
- Piotr StanczakPiotr StańczakPiotr Stańczak was a Polish geologist who was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan in February 2009. Stańczak was abducted in the city of Attock in September 2008 after gunmen shot dead his driver, translator and bodyguard with whom he was travelling in a car...
- Eugene Armstrong
- Nick BergNick BergNicholas Evan "Nick" Berg was an American businessman who went to Iraq after the US invasion of Iraq. He was abducted and later beheaded according to a video released in May 2004 by Islamist militants...
- Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr.Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr.Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr. was an American helicopter engineer who lived in Saudi Arabia. He was a native of both Stafford and Eagleswood, New Jersey...
- Kim Sun-ilKim Sun-ilKim Sun-il was a South Korean translator and Christian missionary who was kidnapped and beheaded in Iraq.- Kidnapping :...
- Jack HensleyJack HensleyJack Hensley was an American engineer from Marietta, Cobb County, Georgia, near Atlanta.While working in Iraq he was kidnapped and beheaded by Iraqi insurgents. His colleague, Eugene Armstrong, was beheaded the previous day...
- Kenneth BigleyKenneth BigleyKenneth John Bigley , born Liverpool, England, was a civil engineer who was kidnapped in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad, Iraq on 16 September 2004, along with his colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, both U.S. citizens...
- Shosei KodaShosei KodaShosei Koda was a Japanese citizen who was kidnapped and later beheaded in Iraq on November 3, 2004 while touring the country. His parents were members of the United Church of Christ...
- Margaret HassanMargaret HassanMargaret Hassan was an Irish aid worker who had worked in Iraq for many years until she was abducted and murdered by unidentified kidnappers in Iraq in 2004, at the age of 59...
- Seif Adnan KanaanSeif Adnan KanaanSeif Adnan Kanaan , was an Iraqi citizen who was abducted in Iraq and beheaded on October 22, 2004. The reason given by the kidnappers, the Army of Ansar Al-Sunna, was that he was employed by the United States Army.-Murder:...
- Yevgeny RodionovYevgeny RodionovYevgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov was a Russian soldier who was taken prisoner and later executed in Chechen captivity...
Further reading
- Lévy, Bernard-HenriBernard-Henri LévyBernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...
, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, Melville House Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-9718659-4-9 - Pearl, Daniel, At Home in the World: Collected Writings from the Wall Street Journal, New York: Free Press, June 2002. ISBN 0-7432-4317-X
- Pearl, MarianeMariane PearlMariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.-Life and career:Pearl was born in Clichy,...
, and Sarah Crichton, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl, New York: Scribner, 2003. ISBN 0-7432-4442-7 - Pearl, Ruth and Judea, eds. I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. Jewish Lights Pub., January 2004. ISBN 1-58023-183-7.
External links
- The Daniel Pearl Foundation
- Remembering Daniel Pearl
- Rewards for Justice Daniel Pearl Page
- The Guardian: "The Pakistan connection"
- Asia Times — Who killed Daniel Pearl?
- South Asian Journalists Association Roundup
- Wall Street Journal selection of stories by Daniel Pearl
- The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl at the Center for Public IntegrityCenter for Public IntegrityThe Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern. The Center is non-partisan and non-advocacy and committed to transparent and comprehensive reporting both in the United States and around...
- The Black Sites - A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program
- Interview with Judea Pearl from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial MuseumUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
- Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship
- Life of Daniel Pearl
- DANIEL PEARL AWARD - Ecole de journalisme de Sciences Po