Reason #33 To Blog4Peace ~ Daniel Pearl

Perhaps I was naive. 
But I remember it as being the first time I truly understood how social media could be used as a weapon of terror. We were watching the news. All wanting Daniel Pearl to be released somehow, to be spared, to be saved.
I suppose it was the moment I saw him on that awful video. You saw his eyes and you knew that he knew. I thought of his mother, his family, his wife and unborn child. I had to turn away. And I remember feeling sick.

He was born of Jewish descent in Princeton, New Jersey. 

He died in Karachi, Pakistan at the hand of a terrorist.  

By the year 2002 after having seen the 1993 Okalahoma bombing and especially the 2001 massacre of Americans on American soil, I shouldn't have been naive.  Having grown up in a relatively safe nook of American culture with no sound of beheadings and such, maybe it would take a while to fully understand propagandist terror.
Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda in February 2002. He was not the first to experience such horror, but he was certainly one of the most publicized.
I think that was the point.

In an effort to protect US journalists around the world, President Barack Obama enacted the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act on May 19, 2010.  It is also designed to bring attention to the freedom of press in other countries. The passing of this law is a good thing, an honorable thing, but it is little comfort to a seven-year-old little boy who never knew his father.

My reason #33 to Blog4Peace

Journalist Daniel Pearl

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