The kidnappers, meanwhile, released new video of Wiig and Centanni Sunday. In a written statement attached to the video, the kidnappers claimed the two men had converted to Islam.
In one segment of the footage, Wiig is seen sitting cross-legged on the floor, dressed in a beige robe and reading from crumpled notes, delivering an anti-Western speech. He also read out an Islamic blessing in Arabic, his fingers following the written text.
"The people of Gaza have suffered for many years in what is effectively a prison camp," he said in a halting voice, his face expressionless. "They have not been free to come and go. Some say this was all started because of 9/11, and of course that wasn't true.
"It is Apache helicopters firing hellfire missiles made in America that kill the residents of Gaza. America and George Bush are seen as being evil in some people's eyes in this part of the world," Wiig said. "It it's time that the leaders of the West listen to the people, take notice of the millions protesting in the streets, stop hiding behind the `I don't negotiate with terrorists' myth."
In another segment, Centanni said he has converted to Islam and raised his index finger in an oath of allegiance to the religion.
Those who remember the Vietnam War will remember how POWs used to read out anti-American propaganda statements, without enthusiasm and often withh subtle signals of hostility, just to stay alive and avoid worse tortures.
These men's "conversions" to Islam should be seen in the same light.
But their eventual renunciations will put themselves in even further jeopardy, for the penalty for "apostasy" from Islam is death.
Perhaps this will be a new method of Islamic terror: kidnap non-Muslims (especially Western Christians and Jews), publicly broadcast their "conversions" to Islam, release them, wait for them to renounce their coerced "conversions", and then declare a fatwa on them.
That way, the kidnap victims can never really escape their captors.
Source: CBS-5
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