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ISIS Executes British Hostage; America Held Hostage by ISIS; Ebola Case in U.S. Examined; Harvard Students Emailed Death Threat; Interview with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee; Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Protests Continue; Documentary Examines Anti-Gay Violence in Russia

Aired October 04, 2014 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: We have a lot to talk about this morning. But we first, of course, want to say hello to you. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. Ten o'clock here on the East Coast, 7:00 out West.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

PAUL: Yes. And we're beginning with two big stories this morning.

Right now, Ebola patient Tomas Duncan is fighting for his life in a Dallas hospital we know. His troubles stop there, though. He could face criminal charges. The Dallas County district attorney office is, quote, "looking" into his story to determine if he knowingly and intentionally exposed the public to Ebola.

BLACKWELL: Meanwhile, the White House is trying to calm fears over Ebola in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA MONACO, WHITE HOUSE COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER: I want to emphasis the United States is prepared to deal with this crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And the CDC now says 10 people who had contact with Duncan are at high risk of contracting the virus. CNN's Nick Valencia has a live report from Dallas.

Plus Prime Minister David Cameron vows to hunt down the ISIS terrorist who killed British aid worker Alan Henning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The murder of Alan Henning is absolutely abhorrent. It is senseless. It is completely unforgivable.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: And now ISIS is threatening to kill American hostage Peter Kassig. CNN's Alexandra Field is live from his hometown, so we will get to that in just a moment. But we want to start this hour with Ebola. The race to keep this virus from spreading in the U.S. is in full force at this point.

BLACKWELL: Yes, there's no question there have been a lot of missteps in Dallas. Let's bring in CNN's Nick Valencia. Nick, the mistakes were made in Dallas, but now the D.A. is now looking into, the report from this press release, possible charges against the Ebola patient. On what pretext here?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Liberian airport authority, if that is any indication, they said a couple of days ago he might have falsified his health screening test. When asked on that health screening form if he'd ever come in contact with somebody who had Ebola, he allegedly said no. So there is a chance if he ever makes it back to Liberia that he could face charges. You are hearing the district attorney also saying perhaps he could be prosecuted here.

But let's get back to missteps, Victor. That is front page news this morning in "The Dallas Morning News." Dallas County officials acknowledging they could have done things a little differently very early on. They said despite that there is a lot of things they have done right and that the public should not lose confidence in this process, that there is a very strong health infrastructure and they have all the resources to help someone like Thomas Duncan. Victor?

BALDWIN: OK, so we are learning more it seems by the hour about Duncan, such as what brought him to the U.S. in the first place. What can you tell us now?

VALENCIA: Well, we are hearing now from the family's church that Thomas Duncan said that he was on his way to marry his girlfriend. We know that they have had a relationship for quite some time. They have a child together, a 19-year-old now in college. But somewhere along those years they had a falling out. They recently reconciled with his girlfriend taking a trip to Liberia in August. And he says he was on his way here to marry his girlfriend. Victor and Christi?

BLACKWELL: All right, so we know that the family, the four people who were there, they are quarantined there. They have been moved to a larger place. Do we know anything about the cleaning process there? Is it over? How long will it take?

VALENCIA: Well, they said on the apartment complex, phase one of the cleaning process starting Friday afternoon and expected to take days, perhaps weeks. We know that the hazmat crew is still working to take out those infectious items that Duncan had contact with. And while we were there yesterday a lot of neighbors and residents in that apartment complex looking on, some very curious, some very concerned and worried.

Health official saying yesterday in a press conference that some people in that complex were actually turned away from their job because of concerns that they may have contracted something, as well as students at a local high school, African students being made fun of there, bullied because of their heritage. They are being called Ebola according to one student that I spoke to.

So clearly a lot of paranoia and fear, but county saying they are doing their best to temper alarmists and really tell others that they need to take this seriously. As far as the private residence that the family has been moved to, we understand it was a faith-based group helped put that family there. It's a four bedroom house in Dallas. We don't know too much about the environment there that the family is stepping in to, but we do know that they have been moved from that complex. Victor and Christi?

PAUL: All right, Nick Valencia reporting from Dallas for us. Nick, good to see you this morning, thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, thank you, Nick.

We've got a quick update here. The person tested for Ebola in Maryland does not have the disease. Instead the patient who checked in to Shady Grove hospital in Rockdale has malaria, not Ebola. So right now we still only have one case of Ebola in the U.S. and official are still waiting for the test results to determine if the patient at Howard University hospital in D.C. has the virus.

PAUL: Let's move on to our other big story that we're following, the brutal beheading of a British husband, father, taxi driver in the desert by ISIS, Alan Henning. He went to Syria to help war victims.

BLACKWELL: And people who knew him say that he had a heart of gold. He was taken captive shorting after he crossed the border. He was held hostage for months and then killed despite pleas to ISIS by his family and Muslim leaders to spare his life. As new coalition air strikes target ISIS positions in Syria this morning, British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to find Henning's killers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON: As a country, we must do with our allies, is everything we can to defeat this organization in the region, but also to defeat it at home. And we must do everything we can to hunt down and find the people who are responsible for this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: And remember ISIS is now threatening to kill American hostage Peter Kassig. He's 26-years old. He went to the Middle East as a soldier and returned as the medical worker to help war victims.

BLACKWELL: Alexandra Field is in Indianapolis, Kassig's hometown. Alexandra, have you heard from his family?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, certainly the family does want some privacy right now, they have said that. But they have at the same time they have put out a statement, and in it they both offer their respects to Alan Henning's family and they express their deep desire for their own son's safe return. I want to read to you what they said. They say "We ask everyone around the world to pray for the Henning family for our son and for the release of all innocent people being held hostage in the Middle East and around the globe." Peter Kassig has been held hostage for a year now. He grew up here in Indianapolis. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007 with the Army rangers. He was discharged for medical reasons and then returned to Indiana where he did some schooling and then decided he wanted to pursue a different path. He decided to do his EMT training. And have after he returned overseas wanting to help Syrian refugees. Christi, Victor?

PAUL: All righty, Alexandra Field, we appreciate it very much. Thank you. And we'll obviously keep you updated on what's happening with that situation.

BLACKWELL: Another story we're following, security understandably is tight at Harvard after hundreds of students received an e-mailed death threat. "The Boston Globe" is reporting that the profanity laced email reads "I will come tomorrow in Harvard University and shoot all of you, each one of you, all Harvard students. I will kill you individually. I'll be back tomorrow at 11:00 in your blank university and will kill you sons of blank. Even Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook I will kill. I will kill every one of you." Harvard police notified Boston law enforcement as well as the FBI.

Now that the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the U.S., are health officials doing everything possible to keep Americans safe?

PAUL: We'll continue to focus on the Ebola crisis on this hour of CNN Newsroom. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA MONACO, WHITE HOUSE COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER: I want to emphasize that the United States is prepared to deal with this crisis both at home and in the region.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Our healthcare infrastructure in the United States is well equipped to stop Ebola in its tracks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, so you heard it there. The U.S. is confident it can stop Ebola in its tracks. But is that really the case? Let's bring in Dr. William Schaffner from Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. Dr. Schaffner, good to have you back.

WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, VANDERBILT MEDICAL CENTER: Hello, Victor. Good to be with you.

BLACKWELL: So considering that Thomas Duncan lied on the form, got into the country, felt sick, went to a hospital. They sent him home with antibiotics and then left his partner and her family in an apartment for days with sweaty sheets and towels, are you confident the U.S. is ready to prevent this becoming an outbreak?

SCHAFFNER: Actually, I am. And though we have to recognize there were some glitches, what we haven't talked about is what's really important that was done very well. The essentially part of the public health response once the patient was identified is the contact tracing. That is being done wonderfully by the local people in association with people from the CDC. Those people have been identified. They are under surveillance, and that is the really important part.

Yes, the environmental aspects, the apartment, such as you mentioned Victor, that is part of it. But actually the risk from that is very, very low. This is a very wimpy virus. Once it gets out of body it begins to deteriorate very, very quickly. It was unpleasant, et cetera. We all have to figure how do that in a more expeditious fashion, but the essentials are underway. There is not going to be an Ebola spread in the United States. Can we calm things down? What we really have is an epidemic of anxiety. The Ebola part, that's under control.

BLACKWELL: Well let's get some answers. We've asked viewers to send questions via Twitter, via CNN iReport. I want to go to one from Ian Patrick Dunn. He wants to know, "Why is Ebola becoming such a problem again? Wasn't it dormant a while ago?"

SCHAFFNER: Yes, it's dormant because it lives in wildlife, and for reasons that we don't understand occasionally gets into human populations. And in West Africa for the first time it got into a large urban environment in countries where they had a very primitive, a very simple, modest public health infrastructure. And so now it is spreading wildly there. And we have to work to get that under control.

BLACKWELL: We've got one from our iReporters, a question from an iReporter from New Hampshire. He asked this question. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDA OLSON, NEW HAMPSHIRE IREPORTER: My question is, why are people possibly exposed to the virus being allowed to enter the U.S. without being tested or quarantined first? Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Brenda Olson there with her question. Why are people being allowed into the country?

SCHAFFNER: So people are being allowed into the country because they are entitled to come in. When they get on the plane they are being screened with a questionnaire and a temperature determinant. So if they have had no fever and have had no contact with patients, they can come in. Now, this patient falsely filled out that questionnaire. But while he was on the plane and before he became sick he was of no hazard to anyone else.

BLACKWELL: But doctor, a lot of people do that. When you fill out a form and coming back into the country, and they say have you been on a farm? Have you had any contacts, are you bringing in rocks or stones or seeds, some people lie on these forms, and apparently it didn't work in this case. So should the TSA be in Monrovia?

SCHAFFNER: Well, I can't speak to that, but the people in Liberia are screening individuals, and I would imagine people give false answers to the TSA as well as the Liberians. But the important thing is the United States can't jump into a hole and pull in a hole after it. We are a global economy. We need to keep that up and we need to strengthen and make more efficient what we're doing here. We can keep our attention up and we can identify people who need medical care and public health follow-up once they arrive here.

BLACKWELL: Doctor, just before midnight, Texas Presbyterian Hospital, they put out this clarification they call it. And they say the patient's travel history we're speaking about, Thomas Duncan, his travel history was documented and available to the full care team in the electronic health record, the EHR. They go on to say there was no flaw in the EHR in the way the physician and nursing portions interacted related to this event. Considering they say they knew where he was, that he was in Liberia and they knew his symptoms, saying there is no flaw, is that even credible? There that is on some glitch, some flaw there.

SCHAFFNER: Clearly, Victor, there was a glitch, and the medical care personnel did not themselves ask the patient, where have you been? Have you been outside of the United States? And if so, where have you been? Those two questions are terribly powerful.

This is a lesson to all of us, if we needed it. We should ask any patient who comes to see us with a fever "Have you traveled outside the United States? And if so, where?" That would address that question universally, and is a very powerful, low tech, totally inexpensive way to screen our patients.

BLACKWELL: Yes, just having a conversation with the person. Hopefully they are honest.

SCHAFFNER: Exactly.

BLACKWELL: Dr. William Schaffner, it's always good to have you on. Thank you.

SCHAFFNER: Thank you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Christi?

PAUL: All right, thanks, Victor

So listen, we are covering the pro-democracy protesters, look at them here. They are just refusing to back down in Hong Kong. CNN's Will Ripley is on the scene. We are going take you there live in just a moment. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAUL: Welcome back, so good to have you. It's 20 minutes past the hour. And Hong Kong is really on edge this morning. Massive crowds of pro-democracy protesters are taking to the streets again. Of course it is 10:20 in the evening there where they are. And they are facing off with police as well as their anti-occupy opponents. Look at what happened a bit earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: About 20 people have been arrested in clashes with police just today. And in the seven days of protest, more than 150 people have been injured. More than a dozen are still in the hospital. And now students have called off talks with government officials. Our Will Ripley joins us. Will, Hong Kong's leader urged calm but essential said you all have to get out of here by Monday because city workers have to get into the buildings. What's been the response?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you can see, the response is in the sheer volume of people who have gathered here in the heart of Hong Kong despite warnings from the city leaders and police that they need to clear this street. The city's busiest street has been full of people for a week now demanding democracy. The protesters have ignored the calls and in fact more people have shown up. This is now perhaps the largest crowd we've seen so far in the pro-democracy demonstrations.

And it is not just students anymore. You look at the crowd standing on this pedestrian bridge, the same bridge where there was that clash with the police last night, and you can see there are younger faces, there are older faces. All of these people here with the same objective.

But the problem for the city of Hong Kong is that the group doesn't have one organizer. And so there was talk of trying to negotiate to try to work out some deal to dissipate the group. But people keep coming from various groups, various organizations, and the city really has legitimate concern that even if they set a deadline for Monday, these people are not going to leave voluntarily.

So what are their options? They could bring in the police to try to use force to disperse the protestors, but when they did that last week more people joined this crowd. If they try to sit and wait it out, hoping that the crowd will eventually dissipate, guys, all you have to do is look at this. Tens of thousands of people one week in, they have been here tonight more than two hours. So who knows whether they will dissipate or will more people continue to come and demand change in Hong Kong they say they are not getting?

PAUL: Wow. All right, Will Ripley live for us there in Hong Kong, thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: Thanks, Will. PAUL: Just the sheer volume not just of people but the audible volume

of how they're cheering, and I wonder what they're saying on stage.

BLACKWELL: There appeared to be some type of concert just before the show we were watching. So of course Will will continue to keep us up to date on what's happening there.

Let's go to the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un out of site for three weeks and suffering from what's being characterized as just discomfort, very vague there. But three top North Korean official paid a surprise visit to South Korea today. According to South Korean officials they said they are open to holding a second round of high level meetings this fall. You may remember the first round of talks were held in February.

PAUL: There are new questions this morning about whether Ebola patient Thomas Duncan knowingly exposed others to the deadly virus. What this could mean for air travelers now. We are asking Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee whether the U.S. should implement a travel ban. What do you think? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Bottom of the hour right now. We're so grateful for your company. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Here are the top stories this morning.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has some strong words for ISIS. He says the beheading of Alan Henning by the terror group is, quote, "absolutely abhorrent and unforgivable." And the aid worker was just a good man trying to help in Syria. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON: Alan Henning was a man of great peace, kindness, and gentleness. He went with many Muslim friends to do no more than simply help other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Also, heightened security at Harvard this morning after a death threat was emailed to hundreds of students. "The Boston Globe" reporting a profanity-laced email threatened the lives of current Harvard students plus former student and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Harvard police notified Boston law enforcement as well as the FBI. And we know the university is still investigating, but they say the threat appears to have a come from overseas and may not be credible.

BLACKWELL: Eleven children in Colorado and four in Massachusetts are suffering from a mysterious neurological illness that causes partial paralysis. Some of these children have tested positive for enterovirus 68. The virus has been sending kids around the country to the hospital with severe respiratory illness. But others did now show any signs of the virus. Experts say it could take months to understand really what is happening.

PAUL: Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan could face criminal charges. This is according to the Dallas County district attorney's office, which is, quote, "Looking into whether he knowingly and intentionally exposed had public to a deadly virus." Duncan is still in serious condition and has been accused of lying on a preflight questionnaire about whether he had contact with Ebola patients prior to leaving Liberia.

And that has a lot of people questioning whether the U.S. should restrict air travel from countries where this virus has become such an epidemic. And we've been watching your Facebook and your Twitter questions, and everybody is really concerned here, we know. According to one CDC official in terms of restricting air travel, it may be easier said than done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JORDAN TAPPERO, CDC'S DIVISION OF HEALTH PROTECTION: It is impossible to really control people's movement. When you have a long incubation period, people need to self-monitor. If they know they have had low risk exposure. But there really is no way to limit people's travel throughout that region of West Africa or anywhere else in the world when you are talking about something on a national scale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: All right, let's talk with Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. Congresswoman, thank you for being with us. Right out of the gate I have to ask, do you think the U.S. should ban flights?

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, (D) TEXAS: No, I don't. You may recall right after 9/11 we had a colored alert. I would put this as red, at the top of the crisis of alertness, and that's really what should happen. There should be extensive alertness for individuals coming from those countries that are known that have a huge infection rate. That should be done.

We should have a very sharp team at all of our international airports. And I went to one of our airports, Bush International, and talked to the customs and border protection and walked through the process, and asked that they ramp up the inquiries made to passengers about where you have traveled.

And then as I spoke to Centers for Disease Control, we don't need to play down the seriousness of Ebola. It is a major health crisis. And I question those who want to in essence say it is not that big of a problem in the spirit of not creating hysteria. We won't create hysteria if we are speaking truthfully to the American people. So we need to let them know that this is an extreme crisis, and the failures that happened in the health system in Texas should not have happened.

Apparently they had the information. The individual said that he had been to Liberia, had come in Liberia, and had made it very clear that he had just recently traveled, and in addition he had the very symptoms that the protocols have indicated may indicate an infection with respect to Ebola. So everything was in place except the attentiveness. And what I've indicated is that all hospitals and medical facilities, clinics and otherwise, need to be on extreme alert.

As a person who's been on Homeland Security since 9/11, I can tell you it would be very difficult to block entry into the United States, but it's not difficult to have very intense review at airports, to have intense units of the Centers for Disease Control at our international airports. And I even made the point that see something, say something. Customs and border protection is not a medical team, but they can detect when someone doesn't look completely well.

PAUL: Well, as far as we have been told, as you know, he didn't have a fever or any of the symptoms when he boarded the plane. But we did mention earlier the Dallas County district attorney's office is looking into whether he knowingly, Mr. Duncan, of course, knowingly exposed had Ebola virus to other people. Do you believe if it comes out that he did lie on that preflight questionnaire that he should be prosecuted for it?

LEE: There is no doubt that he lied, apparently. And those are laws dealing with Liberia. I would take exception as it relates to a health condition. It seems there are other reasons that he came here. He had a girlfriend that he intended to marry. And so I'm not ready to project that he maliciously came or it was a terrorist act.

I am ready to say that this is the most powerful country in the world. We have the best health system in the world. We've got to show the American people by putting in the kinds of restraints and processes and protocols, and we can't let anyone be lax in doing so. And we have to hold ourselves accountable. And I believe that every moment that we can raise up the ante, explain to the American people, medical professionals, this is serious, we need to do so.

PAUL: I want to switch gears if I could please here for just a moment, because I want to talk about the Secret Service. You were at the oversight hearing and questioned Julia Pierson about some of the recent Secret Service blunders as we've been seeing. In an interview afterwards I know you said, and I want to quote you here, "heads need to roll." So now that Pierson has stepped down, I'm wondering, are you satisfied, or does more need to be done in your opinion?

LEE: Absolutely not. Let me first say that the most important person to be satisfied with the Secret Service is the first family, president of the United States, the first lady, and all the Secret Service are to care for in the first family. And I see to the president's need for comfort. And so I supported his decision ultimately, though I know that Director Pierson is a very seasoned professional.

But no, I'm not satisfied. My point was to say that every person on duty at that time at the White House as Mr. Gonzalez came over the fence should be fired. The individuals who watched him climb over the fence and were not quick enough, the individuals who looked like they were in slow pace. And let me say this. I am not in any way casting doubt on those

persons' commitment to service or the intent, but they did not do the job. And in this business it is about doing the job. One mistake can result in a great tragedy for the commander in chief, the most powerful person in the world.

Obviously this was a problem in supervision. There was a problem in technique and tactic, and certainly there was a problem, if I might say, in fitness. You can't have six persons chasing one person and not getting them. So every person there should be fired.

The dogs should be retrained. I understand these are attack dogs and I understand the questioning of whether or not they should have allowed those dogs to go because they could dot discern who was the perpetrator. The individual who jumped away from the door, fired. I would take pains to look at what happens inside the house, but the very fact that he was tackled inside means that the persons who were there to protect the White House and the family, all of those persons should be removed. There should be a completely newly trained team put at the White House. And those individuals should be fired or replaced and transferred elsewhere.

PAUL: All right, well, we'll see what happens from this point on. But Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

LEE: Thank you so much very much for having me this morning.

PAUL: Sure.

So coming up, he is just 26. He's being held hostage by ISIS. The terror group is threatening to kill him after beheading a British aid worker. CNN's Arwa Damon is on the Turkish side of the Syrian border right now and she's joining us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Despite punishing air strikes and pleas from Muslim leaders for mercy, ISIS has now beheaded another western hostage.

BLACKWELL: President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron are condemning Alan Henning's killing, and now ISIS is threatening to behead an American hostage, Peter Kassig.

PAUL: CNN's Arwa Damon got a chance to talk to Kassig. This was back in 2012. And she is joining us now from the Turkish-Syrian border. So Arwa, I want to ask you, what about him in particular struck you now that you think about him in this horrific situation?

ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Peter Kassig is an incredible young man. We did meet back in 2012 when we were profiling him. At the time he was working in a hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon, helping to volunteer and treat wounded Syrians. He was just 24 years old back then and effectively throwing a bunch of medical supplies into a backpack and made his way to Lebanon because he believed he had a duty because of his own medical background, he had received training as an EMT, to actually try to do something. His passion about his work and the cause would infect you. He felt just as propelled as himself to try to do something to better the plight of these innocent Syrian victims. Just take a listen to what he told us back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER KASSIG: We each get one life and that is it. We get one shot at this. We don't get any do-overs. And for me it was time to put up or shut up. The way I saw it, I didn't have a choice. This is what I was put here to do. I'm guess I'm just a hopeless romantic and I'm an idealist and I believe in hopeless causes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAMON: And among those hopeless causes was of course this desire do more for these Syrian victims of war inside Syria. Shortly after we met him and I stayed in touch with Peter up until his abduction nearly a year ago, he had set up his own nonprofit, SERA, the Special Emergency Response nonprofit that he put together. And he was working in refugee camps helping the victims in both Turkey and Syria. He was also trying to help train up the volunteers that were working at the makeshift clinics inside Syria, getting them much need medical assistance. And it was during one of those trips on October 1, 2013, that he was abducted by ISIS. Now we do understand that at some point during his captivity he converted to Islam, according to a statement by the family. He has taken the name of Abdul-Rahman, the family not elaborating very much on that at this stage. But they did say that they do understand that from other hostages who have since been released that Peter, or Abdul-Rahman, as he is now known, took great comfort in his faith.

BLACKWELL: And Arwa, we know that it wasn't just the relationship that Peter Kassig developed with the Syrian people. It was also the reverse. They say that he can tell Americans that we are not what the regime says we are. Arwa Damon, thank you so much for sharing that insight from the Turkish-Syrian border.

A relatively new Russian law bans the promotion of so called homosexual propaganda to minors. And now there's a new documentary that takes aim at the law's fallout, exposing how some vigilante groups are fulfilling their goal of making life really hell for homosexuals.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Homosexuality was legalized in Russia more than 20 years ago but some Russians will not accept it. A group "Occupy Pedophilia" viciously attacks gay Russians in the name of morality or religion. Members falsely claim that homosexuals abuse children, and its members are rarely punished. What you are about to see, I actually have to tell you, is pretty disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Homophobic vigilante groups across Russia have started to hunt gay men for fun. They post their trophy videos online. In Russia, tens of thousands of people logon to watch these brutal and humiliating attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Earlier I spoke with the director of a documentary "Hunted, The War against Gays in Russia." It airs Monday an HBO. And we spoke with Ben Steele about this group "Occupy Pedophilia."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN STEELE, DIRECTOR, "HUNTED, THE WAY AGAINST GAYS IN RUSSIA": A terrifying group. They're based across Russia. They've got groups that can operate out of 30 Russian cities. And what they do is they lure gay men to meet up on the Internet. They bait them. And then when they meet up, they often violently assault them. They attack them. They humiliate them. One of the rituals that they do is pour urine on the victims. And out them publicly.

And they film all this material and post these videos that they make on social media sites in Russia. And they get tens of thousands of views. And right across Russia there is this vigilante action against people. And it's deeply disturbing, and the vigilantes feel that they have the approval -- well, they believe they have the approval of the majority of Russian people. And they believe they have the approval of the Russian state as well, the Russian authorities.

BLACKWELL: What is the trajectory, because the approval comes with the passage of the propaganda law? What is the trajectory of those types of laws in Russia?

STEELE: Well, the law was passed last year by the Russian authorities. And what it does is it bans what they call the promotion of homosexuality to minors. And it's a very loosely worded law. But effectively it turns homosexuals into second class citizens and makes it very difficult for gay people to speak out and to protect their rights.

And it also makes a link between homosexuality, a false link, a false claim that homosexuality is linked to child abuse and to pedophilia. And it is something that both the state and the church propagate. So the group we gained access to is actually called Occupy Pedophilia. But the men that they attract week in or week out are gay men. And we filmed some really graphic and disturbing scenes with them. They gave me extraordinary access. I was allowed to tag along.

And in one horrendous scene in the film I'm there in the flat with 13 vigilante men in Saint Petersburg when a gay man unexpectedly arrives. They've been baiting him, luring him online, and suddenly he turns up. I'm forced out of the room. They ordered me to put the camera down, but I pushed by way back in and I managed to keep on filming both because I wanted to show the unfiltered truth of what's happening in Russia but also because I'm deeply concerned for what happened to the young man who is being punched, who is being humiliated. And I feel that by filming I'll be offering some kind of break on potentially excessive violence, which might be used.

BLACKWELL: They continuously asked you to put the camera down, put the camera away. But your presence in some way likely kept the abuse from getting much worse.

How did you gain access? Considering that this group would have likely seen you as from their view, sympathetic to homosexuals? How did you get access to Occupy Pedophilia?

STEELE: Well, the groups are proud of what they do, and of course they promote what they are doing on their own social network sites. As an outsider clearly there was mistrust. I speak Russian and I was able to talk to the groups, and over the period of several months to win trust. I was very clear with the people I met my job is not to judge their behavior. My job is to film what was happening and then let the audiences decide the rights and wrongs of what's going on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: It's something you absolutely should watch. "Hunted, The War against Gays in Russia" premiers Monday night at 9:00 eastern on HBO, which is owned by CNN's parent company Time Warner. Christi?

PAUL: Hey, Victor, thank you so much.

Let's talk about Facebook, because you know they've gotten a lot of criticism for its mood study. Remember that one? The social networking website says it's making some changes, but it won't stop experimenting on users. What you need to know next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Well, this year's top 10 CNN heroes have been chosen.

BLACKWELL: And now it's your turn to pick the most deserving of the title "CNN Hero of the Year." Anderson Cooper shows you how.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Now that we've announced the top 10 CNN heroes of 2014, I want to show you how to choose who should be CNN hero of the year and receive $100,000 for their cause.

Take a look, this is the main page of CNNHeroes.com where you will see all top 10 and you can learn more about each one of them. Here is how you can vote for your favorite. Once you have decided who inspires you the most, click down here on vote. And then a new page comes up and shows you all the top 10 heroes.

Choose the person to vote for. I'm going to randomly select say Ned Norton over here, again, just as an example. His photo will show up down here under your selection. Then just enter your e-mail, type in the security code, and click on the vote button right down there. It's even easier to vote on Facebook. Just make your selection and click over here. You can vote once a day, every day, through Sunday, November 16th with your e-mail address and through Facebook. Just go to CNNHeroes.com. And rally your friends by sharing choice on Facebook or on Twitter. We'll reveal your 2014 hero of the year during "CNN Heroes, an All Star Tribute," a CNN tradition that promises to inspire. (END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: You can vote on the top 10 heroes once a day every day. Visit CNN heroes.com.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's go now with a look at a few of your headlines. At this hour, the 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania is open despite a fire breaking out and damaging four buildings. Look at this. This is just into CNN. The memorial commemorates of course the terror attack on United Airlines flight 93 that crashed there in Shanksville. Among the artifacts, in one of the buildings is an American flag that flew over the U.S. capital on the day of the attacks, but it is not known if it is damaged in that fire.

PAUL: When you look at that flag, that is intense.

Also, J.P. Morgan Chase says it has been backed. The bank revealed cyber criminals gathered information on more than 80 million of its account holders including names, address, phone numbers, email addresses. However bank officials said the hackers did not get any account information or Social Security numbers. So far they have not noticed any customer fraud, they say.

And remember the uproar this summer when Facebook admitted it manipulated nearly 700,000 feeds to determine if different kinds of posts detected users' moods. Now the social media giant is promising to reform the way it conducts research. Among the changes, here are a few of them, more training for new engineers and an enhanced review process for potentially sensitive research. But one thing that will not change, Facebook will keep conducting experiments on its 1.3 billion users.

PAUL: That's 1.3 billion. Good heavens.

We are going to head out of here. But you go out there and make some great memories today.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's hand things over to our friend and colleague Fredricka Whitfield.

WHITFIELD: That's right, don't go far, because you're back here bright and early tomorrow morning. We're counting on it.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Yes, we will be.

WHITFIELD: But in the meantime, have a great day.

PAUL: You, too.

WHITFIELD: All right, hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The 11:00 eastern hour of the Newsroom starts right now.