TOKYO, 25 March 2003 — Several Japanese television networks yesterday justified their broadcasting of images of American prisoners of war, condemned as a violation of the Geneva Convention, as objective reporting. At least four major Japanese broadcasters — including public broadcaster NHK — aired the footage of the POWs early yesterday, and TV Asahi continued to run the clip on its war coverage long after the controversy emerged.

A senior official in charge of foreign news at the private Fuji Television network said editors decided to use the footage as “we are trying to report what happened in a objective manner.”

“It is true that they were taken prisoner ... there was footage of them, and we used it. We did not use it for an imprudently long time. We cut the footage of each person to two-to-three seconds while we did not use the image of bodies,” he said. He was referring to the footage broadcast Sunday by Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite channel, and Iraqi state television, of several dead bodies — apparently US soldiers killed in Iraq — along with five prisoners, including two wounded, one of them a woman.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Sunday that the airing of pictures of prisoners of war in the Iraqi conflict constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions if carried out by an agency of a combatant government, but is a question of ethics for journalists. “The responsibility for the Geneva Convention is a state’s responsibility, it’s not a journalist’s responsibility. Concerning the journalists it’s a question of ethics,” said ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani.

An official in the public relations department of private network TV Asahi said there was a furious propaganda war being waged through the media by both sides and the channel had to avoid becoming a mouthpiece for just one side.

“We consider it a news organization’s duty to report on both sides’ arguments by paying attention to maintaining a balance,” and this would contribute to conveying the reality of war to viewers, he said. An ICRC spokeswoman in Kuwait said pictures shown on television networks and in newspapers of Iraqi prisoners surrendering to US and British forces and of US soldiers captured by Iraqis were both prohibited by the convention. The ICRC has started approaching relevant authorities to seek access to all those taken prisoner.

“The Geneva convention completely prohibits publishing pictures of prisoners of war, as has been happening,” Tamara Al-Rifai, told reporters. “It applies to all parties. For us, the law is clear, and all the parties involved in this war were signatories.”

While the media are not bound by the Geneva Convention, Al-Rifai said all states who have signed it had an obligation not to expose any prisoners of war to public scrutiny. The ICRC said it was still waiting for security clearance to enter southern Iraq from Kuwait. Local staff operating in the southern city of Basra said water supplies there had been cut off since Friday, due to power cuts.

The ICRC was able to restore water to 40 percent of the population through a makeshift arrangement which connects the water treatment center to the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, but said it urgently needed proper access to the city. “People here (in Kuwait) are waiting to go, we are ready, but we can’t just barge into a territory where there are hostilities. We need clearance from coalition forces. We are being very persistent, as in we need to go as soon as possible.”

The ICRC said it would formally ask Iraqi authorities about visiting US or British prisoners of war captured by Baghdad during the conflict there. ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger told journalists in Geneva that he was hopeful the agency would soon be able to visit Iraqi prisoners of war held by coalition forces, following similar talks with Britain and the United States.