VARIOUS: FRANCE ACCELERATES ITS BID FOR THE RELEASE OF TWO FRENCH JOURNALISTS HELD IN IRAQ

Record ID: 838179

  • Title: VARIOUS: FRANCE ACCELERATES ITS BID FOR THE RELEASE OF TWO FRENCH JOURNALISTS HELD IN IRAQ
  • Date: 30th August 2004
  • Summary: (W5) AMMAN, JORDAN (AUGUST 31, 2004) (REUTERS ) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S RESIDENCE AND EMBASSY/ NAMEPLATE WIDE OF BARNIER AT NEWS CONFERENCE SCU (SOUNDBITE) (French) MICHEL BARNIER, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER SAYING: "All the people of France are praying for the release of our compatriots immediately." CUTAWAY MEDIA SCU (SOUNDBITE) (French) BARNIER SAYING: "We are watching minute by minute, hour by hour, in liaison with our team in Baghdad. Reinforced this morning since I personally sent the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs there." WIDE OF BARNIER LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 14th September 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GAZA CITY/ AMMAN, JORDAN / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, IRAQ
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACX90GJLZV73QUKXY2IXT6T360
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: France accelerates bid for two French hostages in
    Iraq as Islamic militant group Hamas also calls for their release.




    An anxious French government accelerated its
    diplomatic bid to save two French reporters held hostage in
    Iraq on Tuesday (August 31) as a fresh kidnapper deadline
    neared for Paris to scrap a ban on Muslim headscarves in
    schools.

    With the Tuesday evening deadline approaching, the
    gravity of the reporters' plight was clearly highlighted
    when a separate group of Iraqi militants said they killed
    12 Nepali hostages.

    France, which was among the most vocal opponents of the
    war in Iraq, had made an impassioned plea to the Islamic
    Army in Iraq to free the men.

    Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, racing through Middle
    East capitals, secured pledges of help in Jordan after
    visiting Cairo on Monday as France called in its many debts
    in the Arab world. Speaking at a news conference in the
    Jordanian capital Amman after meeting the Foreign Minister
    Marwan Moasher, Barnier said that the people of France were
    praying for the release of their compatriots immediately.

    "We are watching minute by minute, hour by hour, in liaison
    with our team in Baghdad. Reinforced this morning since I
    personally sent the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs
    there," he said.

    Barnier, who said France was working tirelessly and
    sometimes in secret to free the hostages, planned to return
    to Egypt and the city of Alexandria later on Tuesday.

    French media reported that France had sent its top
    expert in behind-the-scenes diplomacy, former secret
    service chief and Arab affairs specialist General Philippe
    Rondot, to Iraq. The Defence Ministry refused to confirm or
    deny this.

    The crisis has stunned France, which campaigned against
    the 2003 invasion of Iraq and so had considered itself
    relatively safe from militant attack. France also opposed
    the 1990-2003 economic sanctions on Iraq.

    Islamic militants Hamas joined a chorus of groups
    including French Muslims opposed to the headscarf ban,
    Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and aides to anti-U.S.

    cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in urging freedom for the
    journalists.

    Sami Abu Zuhri, a Spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza
    Strip, said, "We ask the Iraqi kidnappers to release the
    two French hostages. These hostages are innocent, France
    stood with Iraq, refusing to enter the war on Iraq. The
    French position is one of the most understanding of the
    Palestinian position in the West. Therefore, it is
    important to release those French hostages. This will
    isolate the Israeli and American biased positions towards
    the Palestinians and Iraqis."
    The Hamas statement came two days after Palestinian
    President Yasser Arafat took the rare step of calling for
    the journalists to be released. He described French
    President Jacques Chirac as "a good friend of the
    Palestinian people."
    The kidnappers on Monday night gave France a further 24
    hours to repeal its controversial law, which is part of a
    broader measure aimed at anti-Semitism that bars Jewish
    skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

    The Islamic Army in Iraq, a shadowy militant group, did
    not specify the fate facing the two men if there was no
    repeal but the group claimed responsibility for the death
    of an Italian journalist last week.

    On Monday (August 30) the two hostages urged France to
    heed their captors' demand and rescind a ban on Muslim
    headscarves in French schools or else they might be killed
    soon.

    The Arabic TV station Al Jazeera showed the two
    journalists speaking to the camera, urging the French
    people to hold protests and persuade their government to
    retract the ban. On television, Chesnot and Malbrunot,
    looking calm and in a room flooded with daylight, pleaded
    for a repeal of the ban.

    "I call on President Chirac and the French government
    to do something positive for the Arabic and Islamic world,
    to repeal the veil ban immediately," Chesnot, 37, of Radio
    France Internationale, said. "And I call on all French
    nationals to protest against the law and to demand it is
    withdrawn because it's a wrong law and we are going to pay
    with our lives for it."
    Malbrunot, 41, who writes for Le Figaro and Ouest
    France, said their lives were in danger and they might die
    at any moment if the law was not changed.

    Earlier in August, the militant group said it kidnapped
    Iran's envoy to Kerbala, Fereidoun Jahani, and demanded
    Iran return remaining prisoners from the Iran-Iraq War.

    Tehran said it had none and the deadline passed without
    incident. Jahani is still being held.

    While French leaders have vowed not to give in,
    observers saw a glimmer of hope in the deadline extension
    and the mobilisation of Muslim and Arab opposition to the
    kidnappings.

    Jordan's state news agency, Petra, quoted King Abdullah
    as telling Barnier the kingdom would intensify contacts with
    "relevant Iraqi groups to ensure the release of the
    hostages."
    In the past, militants in Iraq have employed kidnapping
    with the aim of driving out companies, individuals and
    troops helping U.S. forces and the new Iraqi government.

    The kidnapping of the French journalists directly targets
    French domestic policy.

    There was a chorus of disapproval from the Arab world.

    Sheikh Abdel Sattar Abdel Jabbar, a top official in
    Iraq's Muslim Clerics Association, also called for the men
    to be freed.

    France passed the law banning ostentatious religious
    symbols in schools in March in reaction to the growing
    influence of Islamist activists and tensions between Muslim
    and Jewish youths in schools. The law also bans Jewish
    skullcaps and large Christian crosses.
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