The Somali pirates who have been hijacking ships for years now have been in the news again after releasing a ship they had held for over 80 days:
"Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died."
1786
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
- Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's Ambassador to Britain, in 1786, supposedly talking to Thomas Jefferson, as reported to the Continental Congress
2008
"We hijack every ship we can," Sugule Ali, a pirate captain, told TIME by satellite phone this week. "We were forced into this work," he argues, speaking from the Faina's bridge at anchor off the village of Hobyo. "We were fishermen. I used to work in the sea every day. But ships from other countries fish our coasts illegally, destroy our nets and fire on whoever approaches them. We were refused the right to fish. They even dump toxic waste. We couldn't work. So we decided to defend ourselves." Ali insists that piracy would stop if the pirates' fundamental grievances were addressed. "If the world stops stealing our property and harming us, we have a solution," he said. "We will stop the piracy and go back to our normal jobs."
- From Time Magazine, the "Arr" story linked above.