The Hindu : International : Hostages: France intensifies efforts

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Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

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International

Hostages: France intensifies efforts

PARIS, AUG. 31. France intensified efforts to save two journalists held hostage in Iraq, convening crisis talks in Paris and around the Arab world on Tuesday as a deadline set by militants neared.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, said every effort was being made to free the journalists, and the Foreign Minister Michel Barnier embarked on a second day of emergency diplomacy in West Asia after the reporters appeared on television pleading for their lives.

Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were shown on a video released by Al-Jazeera television late on Monday urging Mr. Chirac to give in to militants' demands to rescind a ban on Islamic headscarves that takes effect when classes resume on Thursday. France has ruled out repealing the law. Condemnation of the kidnapping and support for France poured in from around Europe and West Asia, notably from Baghdad, where aides to the rebel Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, called for the reporters to be set free. ``We believe such acts defame Islam and Muslims in general,'' said an Al-Sadr representative on Tuesday. ``To fight in a battlefield is OK, but to kill a civilian or journalist is blasphemy.''

Mr. Al-Sadr commands strong support among poor Shias and helped broker the Aug. 22 release of the U.S. journalist, Micah Garen. But Mr. 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.

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