Daniel Pearl: Life and Times

Born on October 10, 1963 in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Encino California, Daniel Pearl was the son of UCLA Professor Judea Pearl. Pearl attended Stanford University as a communications major and graduated with honors in 1985. During his time at Stanford, he co-founded a new student newspaper, The Stanford Commentary and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society for outstanding academic achievement.

After Stanford, Pearl spent the summer abroad traveling to the former Soviet Union, China and Europe, returning to America to reside in Western Massachusetts. While there, he held positions at the North Adams Transcript and then the Berkshire Eagle as a writer.

In 1990, he accepted a position at the Wall Street Journal’s Atlantic Bureau and by 1993, he was working the telecommunications department at the Wall Street Journal’s Washington DC Bureau. By 1996 Pearl was working for the London Bureau as a Middle East correspondent. It was while Pearl was working at the London Bureau in 1998 that he met his future wife Marianne. The two relocated to Paris and were married in 1999.

During the 1999 campaign against Kosovo’s Slobodan Milosevic, Pearl covered the war zone as a correspondent. According to findarticles.com, he exposed the false genocidal claims made by the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army in an article that Pearl co-wrote with journalist Robert Block entitled, “War in Kosovo Was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide it Wasn’t”. This article could have made Pearl a target for extremist groups.

Due to his experience in Kosovo the Wall Street Journal asked Pearl to cover the War on Terror several months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Pearl’s duty was to expose the truth of any conflict or story that he was covering.

In order to cover the war, Pearl flew to Karachi, Pakistan accompanied by his wife, Marianne, who at the time was five months pregnant.

Karachi is a coastal city on Pakistan’s southern shore and is a key location for drug traffickers, gun runners, criminals, kidnappers and terrorists to transit into and out of the area.
Furthermore, India and Pakistan have been engaged in a war over the Kashmir, a contested border zone, for half a century. Karachi, at the time, was considered to be the most dangerous place in the region.

With one interview remaining and the flight home leaving in the morning, Pearl went to meet with the most dangerous warlord in the city: Sheikh Mubarik ali Gilani. Sheikh Gilani had a reputation for excessive cruelty and barbarism. Pearl was advised that there could be a link between the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and the Pakistani militant, according to CNN.com. According to public officials, as long as Pearl met in a public location, everything would work in Pearl’s favor.

Pearl was lulled into a false sense of security and was kidnapped en route to the interview by an extremist militant group who called themselves The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. They held Pearl based on the assumption that he was a spy working for the Central Intelligence Agency, operating undercover as a journalist. Several demands were placed on the United States by this terrorist group via email by ‘kidnapperguy@hotmail.com’, including the release of several detainees being held by America as a result of the War on Terror.

Marianne Pearl and authorities from the United States and Pakistani governments initiated a search for Pearl soon after he was kidnapped.

The search lasted a month and made progress towards locating Pearl. During the search, a series of raids netted the family of Ahmed Saeed Omar Sheikh, the leader of the kidnapping. The family was captured as a means of hopefully causing Omar Sheikh to turn himself in and reveal the whereabouts of Pearl. It is Muslim tradition to never dishonor one’s family.

However, on February 23, 2002 and after two escape attempts by Pearl himself, he was decapitated by his captors. A film proving his murder was sent to his searchers. His mutilated body was found on May 16, 2002 in a shallow grave just outside of Karachi.
Daniel Pearl had a lifelong love of promoting inter-cultural tolerance through music, art and journalism. Marianne Pearl’s drive to continue his legacy motivated her and Pearl’s friends and family to found the Daniel Pearl Foundation. The Daniel Pearl Foundation is dedicated to promoting cross-cultural understanding through music, journalism and open communication.

On October 10, 2002, on what would have been Daniel Pearl’s 39th birthday, the first Daniel Pearl Music Day was held in his memory. The Daniel Pearl Music day is an opportunity for musicians from around the globe to play their music in an attempt to spread cross-cultural tolerance, peace and open communication.