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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka ęape-Rivista Stampa-Denłro de la Prensa-Basin Ozeti

Proche et au Moyen-Orient et partout dans le monde la jus-tice et la dignitć des peuples.»

L‘exercice d’lnfluence indi-recte sur les preneurs d’otage

connait cependant ses limites. Dans ąuelle mesure les per-sonnalitśs arabes et musul-manes sollicitees sont-elles ścoutóes des ravisseurs ? Peu-vent-elles vraiment faire pres-sion sur eux ? Confrontós k un groupe extremiste tres dśter-minś et de surcroit, semble-t-il. divisś, les diplomates fran-ęais n’avaient hier aucune certitude. Mais ils voulaient exploiter toutes les pistes et tous les canaux possibles pour sauver les otages.

French unitę to ask for hostages’ release

Foreign minister heads to Middle East

By Nicoła Clark

International Herald Tribune

Monday, August 30,2004

PARIS: President Jacąues Chirac sent his foreign minister to the Middle East late Sunday to try to secure the release of two French jouraalists kidnapped by Iraqi militants who are demanding that Paris abandon plans to implement a ban on Islamie headscarves in public schoois.

A group calling itself the Islamie Army in Iraq released a videotape of the joumalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, late Saturday and threatened to execute them within 48 hours if France did not rescind a law banning conspicuous religious attire in classrooms. The law is due to take ef-fect when students return from sum-mer break this week.

The demand was a departure from a dozen previous kidnappings in Iraq, in which the kidnappers have generally called on members of the U.S.-led coali-tion to withdraw their troops in ex-change for the release of their nationals.

[Two Turkish hostages were freed by Iraqi militants Sunday, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said, less than a week after the men’s employers an-nounced they were pulling out of Iraq to save the men*s lives, The Associated Press reported from Istanbul.]

The Pan-Arab satellite-television channel Al Jazeera reported Sunday that the militants claiming to be holding the hostages had called France’s headscarf ban ^Man aggression on the Islamie religion and personal freedoms.”

In a televised address late Sunday, Chirac said that the govcmraent was

doing “everything" to secure the men’s release and that morę was at stake than the lives of the two hostages.

“It is the defense of freedom of ex-pression” that is in play, Chirac said “So also are the values of our repub-lic.”

Chirac said Foreign Minister Michel Bamier “is leaving immediately for the region'lo develop the necessary con-tacts there and coordinate our repre-sentatives’ efforts.”

Chirac spoke as Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin held an emer-gency meeting of his cabinet. Those discussions were expected to continue late into the night.

Earlier in the day, Dominique de VII-lepin, the interior minister, met with leaders of the country’s top Muslim or-ganizations to discuss the situation. Both sides vigorously condemned the actions of the hostage-takers.

“French people of all origins and all religions are united in support of our compatriots Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot,” Villepin, who was flanked by Muslim leaders, said, according to Agence France-Presse. “Together, we ask for their release.” Chesnot of Radio France International and Malbrunot of the newspaper Le Figaro disappeared on Aug. 20 while driving from Baghdad to the Shiite holy center ofNajaf.

In a statement, the Union of French Islamie Organizations said that it would “resist with the strongest convic-tion any foreign force seeking to inter-fere in the relations between French Islam and the Republic.” The group, known by its French initials UOIF, has strongly opposed the headscarf ban.

Religious leaders in Iraq also urged the kidnappers to release the hostages immediately.

“We are against these kidnappings, particularly of joumalists because they are our voice in Iraq," said Sheikh Ab-dul Sattar Abdul al-Jabbar, a member of Iraq’s Committee of Ulemas, according to Agence France-Presse.

“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.

The revival of the politically charged debate over Muslim headscarves comes just days before the law, which was passed in February, is due to take effect. The prohibition, which does not apply to private schoois or to French schoois abroad, also applies to Jewish yar-mulkes and large Christian crosses.

Students of any faith who refuse to re-move their religious symbols in class face temporary suspension or expulsion.

France’s staunchly secular govem-ment has gone to great lengths to por-tray the ban on religious symbols in ele-mentary and secondary schoois as nondenominational. Nonetheless, it has been widely perceived among French Muslims as targeting Islam. Opponents of the ban took to the streets repeatedly this spring but won only a smali conces-sion: Muslim girls would be allowed to wear smali bandannas.

Iraqi and Western intelligence ser-vices said Sunday that they were strug-gling to leam morę about the group claiming responsibility for the kidnap-ping, which appeared on the scene last spring. The Islamie Army in Iraq also held an Italian joumalist, Enzo Baldoni, who was reportedly killed after the Italian govemment refused to comply

with the group's demand that it withdraw its 3,000-member military contin-gent from Iraq.

Baldoni disappeared on the same day the French reporters did and on the same stretch of road between Baghdad and Najaf.

In Brussels, a spokeswoman for Javier Solana, the head of foreign policy and security affairs for the European Union, said in a telephone interview that the Union fully supported France in its re-sponse to the kidnappers’ demands.

“The reaction of the European insti-tutions is going to be one of total sup-

Religious leaders in lraq urged the kidnappers to release the hostages.

port of the French govemment,” Christina Gallach said, referring to the extremist$’ cali to overtum the ban. Gallach said the issue of separation of

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