Dear friends,

In a new sign of hope, the Taliban released their first two hostages

Dear friends,

In a new sign of hope, the Taliban released their first two hostages
yesterday. The attention and persuasion is beginning to work--but 19
young people, mostly women, still face execution and the nightmare of
captivity.

Over 90,000 of us from 187 countries have rushed to help, and added
our voices to an emergency petition, calling on the Taliban to honour
their own 'Pashtunwali' code of hospitality by releasing the hostages.
This week, we'll spread our message across Afghanistan, by running the
petition as a full page ad in a major newspaper, the Killid Weekly.
Officials have given us the phone number of the Taliban spokesman,
Qari Yusef Ahmadi--so we will also call him to deliver our message
directly to the Taliban leadership.

The Killid Weekly ad, and the phone call to Ahmadi, will be more
effective the greater our numbers. We need to get well over 100,000
signers in the next 24 hours, and massively grow the petition this
week. Please forward this email to as many friends as possible and ask
them to sign the petition at the link below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/honour_the_afghan_code/c.php/?cl=15742471

Afghans tell us that asking the Taliban to respect their own code of
honour is a powerfully persuasive message.

In 2003 an aid worker named Bettina Goislard, 29, was shot dead by Taliban gunmen. Local people
chased down the gunmen and handed them over to the police--and then
marched hundreds of miles to Kabul with Bettina's body to show their
shame and remorse.

Although they were Christian evangelicals, all evidence says that the
Koreans were in Afghanistan to do aid work, not to convert Afghans to
their faith. As with other hostages, like the German engineers, the
Taliban targeted them for political and tactical reasons, not
religious ones.

The lives of 19 innocent people hang in the balance. So do the lives
of many Afghan civilians who rely on international help--because if
the Koreans die, other aid groups may leave. This week we have two
major opportunities to be heard by the Taliban. Our strength lies in
our numbers. If you have already signed the petition and would like to
send a message to your email address book, click below to use our
tool:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/honour_the_afghan_code/c.php?cl=15742471#tellafriend

With hope,

Ricken, Iain, Pascal, Graziela and the rest of the Avaaz Team

PS - You can read more about the 'Pashtunwali' code and its ethic of
hospitality here:
http://afghanland.com/culture/pashtunwali.html

And here's a recent article on the hostage crisis:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/14/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Kidnappings.php

Dear friends,

In a new sign of hope, the Taliban released their first two hostages
yesterday. The attention and persuasion is beginning to work--but 19
young people, mostly women, still face execution and the nightmare of
captivity.

Although they were Christian evangelicals, all evidence

says that the Koreans were in Afghanistan to do aid work

not to convert Afghans to their faith.