Reporters Without Borders asks Arab media to publicise Muslim opposition to kidnapping of two French journalists

Organisation:

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Iraq's Committee of Muslim Ulemas, France's Muslim Council and Union of Islamic Organisations, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have called for the kidnappers to release their two hostages. Reporters Without Borders has asked Arab media to relay their appeals.

- Read the arabic version : Many Muslims and Islamic institutions called today for the release of two French journalists threatened with execution by kidnappers in Iraq. Reporters Without Borders appealed to Arab media to give the widest publicity to these calls. The kidnappers have said they will execute the journalists - Christian Chesnot, a freelance with Radio France Internationale and Radio France, and Georges Malbrunot, a senior reporter with the dailies Le Figaro and Ouest France - if the French government does not immediately lift its ban on wearing Muslim headscarves in French schools. The head of France's Muslim Council, Dalil Boubakeur, deplored the kidnapping as "immoral and unspeakable" and Lhaj Breze, president of the French Union of Islamic Organisations, said he "very strongly rejected interference by any foreign force" in relations between the French government and Islamic institutions in France. Iraq's Sunni Committee of Muslim Ulemas earlier called for the journalists to be freed. Spokesman Sheikh Abdessatar Abdeljawad urged the kidnappers to "preserve our friendship with France, which has opposed the occupation of Iraq." A spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood condemned "the kidnapping of civilians for any reason, especially when the issues raised do not concern the country where the kidnapping took place." Reporters Without Borders appealed to the kidnappers to listen to the appeals from a range of Muslims and their organisations. It stressed that the two journalists knew the Arab world well, were very respectful of Islam and had never reported in a sensational manner. The pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera broadcast a video on 28 August showing the two reporters saying they were in good health and were being held by members of the Islamic Army of Iraq, which said the pair would be executed if France did not lift the headscarves ban within 48 hours. - Read the arabic version :

Published on 29.08.2004