French Hostages Urge End to Head Scarf Ban
Associated Press | Tue Aug 31 | ELAINE GANLEY
PARIS - The French government prepared for crisis talks Tuesday to save the lives of two journalists held hostage in Iraq, while aides to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the release of the reporters as a deadline set by their kidnappers neared.
Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were shown on a video released by Al-Jazeera television late Monday pleading with President Jacques Chirac to save their lives by giving in to militants' demands to rescind a ban on head scarves in French schools.
France has ruled out lifting the ban, and Muslim leaders in France and abroad have criticized the kidnapping of the journalists.
"We believe such acts defame Islam and Muslims in general," Ali al-Yasiri, an al-Sadr representative in Baghdad, said Tuesday. "To fight in a battlefield is OK, but to kill a civilian or journalist is blasphemy."
"I call upon the kidnappers to immediately release the French journalists," another al-Sadr official, Sheikh Youssef Al-Nassiri, told Al-Jazeera.
Al-Sadr commands strong support among poor Iraqi Shiites and helped broker the Aug. 22 release of U.S. journalist Micah Garen after nine days in the hands of Shiite militiamen. But al-Sadr has little influence with Sunni Muslims, and the group that has said it seized the French reporters, "The Islamic Army of Iraq," is believed to be a Sunni group.
The European Parliament called for the immediate release of the two Frenchmen and more than 160 EU lawmakers had signed a petition by Tuesday morning demanding their freedom.
"I call on the kidnappers to release their hostages," EU assembly President Josep Borrell said in a statement. "Whatever its origin, terrorism has but one goal; to kill freedom of expression and thought. Democrats around the world have to fight this."
In a video broadcast Saturday, the group gave the French government 48 hours to overturn the ban, but mentioned no threat against the men's lives. A militant group with a similar name was believed to have killed an Italian freelance journalist last week after Italy's government rejected a demand that it withdraw its 3,000 soldiers in Iraq.
Al-Jazeera on Monday said the group holding the two Frenchmen had extended its deadline by 24 hours, to late Tuesday.
In Monday's video, the two unshaven men, missing since Aug. 19, sat together in front of a gray, mud wall with a small window above them.
"I appeal to the French people to go to the streets ... because our lives are threatened," journalist Georges Malbrunot said in English on the video. Speaking in French, fellow hostage Christian Chesnot called on Chirac and his government to drop the ban, according to an Al-Jazeera newsreader, who interpreted his remarks into Arabic.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin called an emergency meeting of his top ministers for late Tuesday morning, as Foreign Minister Michel Barnier began the second day of emergency diplomacy in the Middle East to free the journalists.
"Every tool of the State is mobilized today," Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told LCI television before the meeting started. "The government, like the French people, is mobilized, united and concerned."
While the law bans all "conspicuous" religious apparel, such as Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, it is aimed at Muslim head scarves in public schools. Many French fear their secular nation, which has the biggest Islamic population in western Europe with 5 million Muslims, is under threat from a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.
The kidnappers called the ban "an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms." But Muslim leaders at home and abroad rallied around France with statements of support and calls for the two reporters to be let go.
The measure's passage in March triggered protests by Muslims, as well as turban-wearing Sikhs, around the world, who argued it is discriminatory.
But Muslim activists in the Middle East appealed to the hostage-takers Monday and offered praise for France's anti-war stance on Iraq.
"Because of France's distinguished position in rejecting the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq, we appeal to the people who kidnapped the journalists to spare their lives," said the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest opposition group.
French Foreign Minister Barnier was in Jordan on Tuesday after meetings in Cairo, Egypt on Monday with Egyptian officials and the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.
Associated Press | Tue Aug 31 | ELAINE GANLEY
PARIS - The French government prepared for crisis talks Tuesday to save the lives of two journalists held hostage in Iraq, while aides to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the release of the reporters as a deadline set by their kidnappers neared.
Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were shown on a video released by Al-Jazeera television late Monday pleading with President Jacques Chirac to save their lives by giving in to militants' demands to rescind a ban on head scarves in French schools.
France has ruled out lifting the ban, and Muslim leaders in France and abroad have criticized the kidnapping of the journalists.
"We believe such acts defame Islam and Muslims in general," Ali al-Yasiri, an al-Sadr representative in Baghdad, said Tuesday. "To fight in a battlefield is OK, but to kill a civilian or journalist is blasphemy."
"I call upon the kidnappers to immediately release the French journalists," another al-Sadr official, Sheikh Youssef Al-Nassiri, told Al-Jazeera.
Al-Sadr commands strong support among poor Iraqi Shiites and helped broker the Aug. 22 release of U.S. journalist Micah Garen after nine days in the hands of Shiite militiamen. But al-Sadr has little influence with Sunni Muslims, and the group that has said it seized the French reporters, "The Islamic Army of Iraq," is believed to be a Sunni group.
The European Parliament called for the immediate release of the two Frenchmen and more than 160 EU lawmakers had signed a petition by Tuesday morning demanding their freedom.
"I call on the kidnappers to release their hostages," EU assembly President Josep Borrell said in a statement. "Whatever its origin, terrorism has but one goal; to kill freedom of expression and thought. Democrats around the world have to fight this."
In a video broadcast Saturday, the group gave the French government 48 hours to overturn the ban, but mentioned no threat against the men's lives. A militant group with a similar name was believed to have killed an Italian freelance journalist last week after Italy's government rejected a demand that it withdraw its 3,000 soldiers in Iraq.
Al-Jazeera on Monday said the group holding the two Frenchmen had extended its deadline by 24 hours, to late Tuesday.
In Monday's video, the two unshaven men, missing since Aug. 19, sat together in front of a gray, mud wall with a small window above them.
"I appeal to the French people to go to the streets ... because our lives are threatened," journalist Georges Malbrunot said in English on the video. Speaking in French, fellow hostage Christian Chesnot called on Chirac and his government to drop the ban, according to an Al-Jazeera newsreader, who interpreted his remarks into Arabic.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin called an emergency meeting of his top ministers for late Tuesday morning, as Foreign Minister Michel Barnier began the second day of emergency diplomacy in the Middle East to free the journalists.
"Every tool of the State is mobilized today," Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told LCI television before the meeting started. "The government, like the French people, is mobilized, united and concerned."
While the law bans all "conspicuous" religious apparel, such as Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, it is aimed at Muslim head scarves in public schools. Many French fear their secular nation, which has the biggest Islamic population in western Europe with 5 million Muslims, is under threat from a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.
The kidnappers called the ban "an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms." But Muslim leaders at home and abroad rallied around France with statements of support and calls for the two reporters to be let go.
The measure's passage in March triggered protests by Muslims, as well as turban-wearing Sikhs, around the world, who argued it is discriminatory.
But Muslim activists in the Middle East appealed to the hostage-takers Monday and offered praise for France's anti-war stance on Iraq.
"Because of France's distinguished position in rejecting the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq, we appeal to the people who kidnapped the journalists to spare their lives," said the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest opposition group.
French Foreign Minister Barnier was in Jordan on Tuesday after meetings in Cairo, Egypt on Monday with Egyptian officials and the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.
