BAGHDAD, 30 August 2004 — Muslim leaders in Iraq and France yesterday appealed for the release of two kidnapped French journalists facing death.
“We call on the Islamic Army in Iraq to release the two French journalists in recognition of France’s stance during the war and in tribute to French journalists who report the crimes committed daily against the Iraqi people by the American occupation forces,” the Irshad and Al-Fatwa Committee said.
At the same time, it called on Paris to overturn its ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools, which the kidnappers have demanded the French government do within 48 hours.
The Committee of Ulemas also called for the journalists’ immediate release.
“We are against these kidnappings, particularly of journalists because they are our voice in Iraq,” member Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abdul Jabbar said.
“The veil is a domestic affair for France. But perhaps we can ask it to pay attention to Muslims and modify its policy,” he added.
If the kidnappers are true Muslims and respect the Shariah, they must release the hostages, he said.
Radio France Internationale correspondent Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper went missing on Aug. 20, the day they were to have left Baghdad for the central city of Najaf, then the scene of fierce fighting between US forces and Shiite militia loyal to cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Late Saturday, Al-Jazeera television broadcast images of Chesnot and Malbrunot along with an ultimatum from the Islamic Army in Iraq, the same group that killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni after kidnapping him.
French President Jacques Chirac said he would immediately dispatch Foreign Minister Michel Barnier to the Middle East to help negotiate the release of the captives. Chirac “solemnly” called for the release of the journalists.
“Everything’s been done and everything will be done in the hours and days to come to make sure that happens,” Chirac said.
France’s Muslim minority also urged the militants to free the two.
“The French Muslim community is absolutely innocent,” said Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. “I beg that there not be any confusion between the French Muslim community and this odious blackmail.”
Lhaj Thami Breze, head of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) which has urged schoolgirls to defy the ban, said the headscarf issue was strictly a French affair.
“We cannot accept any outside interference,” he said.
Tariq Ramadan, a popular Muslim preacher whose visa to teach in the United States was revoked last week, urged French Muslims to make clear to the kidnappers they did not support them.
France passed the law banning conspicuous signs of faith in state schools last March in reaction to the growing influence of Islamic activists among its 5 million Muslims and mounting tensions between Muslim and Jewish youths in schools.0
— Additional input from agencies
