Daniel Pearl
The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter
who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just
four months after 9/11. People around the world, along with his pregnant wife
and family, prayed for his release. Since then, he has been remembered as a
symbol of hope: a man who built bridges between diverse cultures -- as a writer
and a gifted musician.
Danny was born on October 10, 1963, in
Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he displayed an
insatiable curiosity for music, academics and sports. Music turned out to be an
essential form of expression for Danny and led him to become a fixture in several
bands throughout the world, where he improvised on the electric violin, fiddle,
or mandolin.
A gifted writer from a very young age, Danny's
aptitude for journalism became apparent as a student at Stanford University
where he graduated in 1985 with Phi Beta
Kappa honors. He joined the Wall Street Journal in 1990 starting in
the Journal's Atlanta bureau and moving successively to the Washington and
London bureaus, serving as a Middle East correspondent.
In October of 2000, he moved to Bombay, becoming
the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. From Bombay, Pearl covered
the "war on terrorism," occasionally venturing into Pakistan. He was
retracing the steps of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid when he was
abducted in Karachi on January 23, 2002. Several weeks elapsed without word of
his fate; his murder was confirmed on February 21, 2002. Four of the kidnappers
were convicted on July 15, 2002, including mastermind Omar Saeed Sheik.
Following his murder, Danny's family and friends
established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to carry on his legacy, using music and
words to address the root causes of the hatred that took his life.
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