Paris Calls for Instant Release of French Journalists
Pakistan Times Staff Report

PARIS (France): France said on Sunday that it was more than ever mobilized after two French journalists were taken hostage in Iraq by militants demanding the rescinding of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in French schools.

The interior ministry announced a meeting had been called on Sunday of the French Committee of the Muslim Faith (FCMF) by Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin.

A spokesman for the foreign ministry said in a statement: "More than ever the services of the French embassy in Baghdad, like the French authorities, are mobilized.

"Once again we call for the liberation of the two French journalists" Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, he went on, adding that the ministry would not make any further comment at this stage.

Perspective

Two French journalists have been taken hostage in Iraq militants demanding the rescinding of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in French schools.

The kidnappers from the Islamic Army in Iraq, the same group which killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni after taking him hostage, gave Paris a 48-hour ultimatum to meet its demands, the Qatar-based television said citing "our own sources in Iraq".

The channel identified the kidnapped Frenchmen as missing journalists, Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Paris daily Le Figaro and said it had received video footage of the two newsmen.

Backdrop

The pair went missing on August-20 after leaving Baghdad for the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, where US forces unleashed a process of Hit and Go via planes and gunship helicopters for several days.

The group is demanding that "France rescinds within 48 hours the law banning" Islamic headscarves in schools, describing the law as "an injustice and an attack on the Islamic religion and individual freedoms,"

Baldoni 's Killing

Baldoni was killed after being held for a week, the news channel had reported and said it had a videotape showing the journalist after his execution, but decided not to release it as it would be too shocking for viewers.

It quoted a statement attributed to the kidnappers saying the Italian had been slain under Islamic sharia law.

Baldoni's captors had threatened to kill their hostage unless Italy withdrew its 3,000 troops from Iraq within 48 hours.

Of the Headscarves

The French legislation, passed in March amid much controversy and some overseas criticism, prohibits any ostentatious religious insignia, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, in state schools and universities.

The government introduced the law to stop what it saw as an increasingly radical stance by some students to assert their religious identity in schools in violation of a principle that such institutions should be strictly secular.

But the legislation -- due to go into effect in September when classes resume -- was widely criticized in many countries in the Arab world, which said it was an example of blatant discrimination against Muslims.

France is home to Europe's largest Muslim community, at about five million strong.

Demonstrations against the French legislation were held late last year and early this year in Lebanon, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, the Gaza Strip and in France itself, where a section of the Muslim community campaigned against the new regulation.

A letter from a hitherto unknown group calling itself "Servants of Allah the Powerful and the Wise" had threatened to carry out violent attacks in France.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda deputy leader, has said the ban on headscarves had "yet again indicated the grudge the Crusaders bore towards Muslims."

Kidnappings of journalists and other foreigners have become common in Iraq as insurgents attempt to force countries to withdraw their troops from the war-ravaged country or extort money.

However, both Chesnot and Malbrunot's employers and Sunni Muslim scholars had earlier expressed faith that if they had been kidnapped they would be safe because France had opposed the US-led war against Iraq.●