Iraq: French Hostages Released Due to Islamic World Intervention

Iraq: French Hostages Released Due to Islamic World Intervention

 

Read here full article

December 24, 2004

Pleas from across the Arab and Muslim worlds played a key role in turning the minds of Muslim militants who abducted two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, in Iraq and freed them this week after a four-month ordeal, analysts say.

"Never have Arabs and Muslims been so unanimous," said Abdelbari Atwan, chief editor of London’s Arab-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

"Islamists, liberals, nationalists, leftists, all sorts of persuasions, called for their liberation," he said, referring to Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who returned home to France on Wednesday.

Chesnot and Malbrunot were seized along with their Syrian driver on a road south of Baghdad on August 20 by the Islamic Army of Iraq, which was demanding that France rescind a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in state schools.

"Islamic organisations, human rights associations, labour unions and journalists associations all played a role in the liberation, which would not have been possible without their admiration for the position of France with regard to the principal Arab-Muslim causes: Palestine and Iraq," Atwan told AFP.

Among them were :

• Mufti of Syria,

• the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,

• Palestinian radical groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas,

• the chief of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference,

• Iraqi radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and

• Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, head of Cairo’s Al-Azar University and one of the highest authorities in the Sunni Muslim world.

In a statement Tuesday announcing the liberation of the two pair, the Islamic Army said they were freed

" because they were proven not to spy for US forces, in response to appeals and demands from Islamic institutions and bodies, and in appreciation of the French government’s stand on the Iraq issue and the two journalists’ stand on the Palestinian cause."

The director of the London-based Islamic Observatory, Yasser al-Serri, said it was "undeniable that French policy was a determining factor" in the men’s release.

Only days after the two were abducted, Serri called for their release, saying their reports in the war-shattered country gave an objective picture of Islam.

"We call on the abductors to free the two journalists... who had been denouncing the American crimes in Iraq in their work," said Serri, whose organisation defends Muslims around the world and is widely respected by Islamic groups.

Serri said the two journalists were known to "present the right image of Islam and of Islamic civilisation."

He pointed out the irony of another journalist, Italian Enzo Baldoni, who was murdered by the Islamic Army.

Serri said he was also preparing to denounce US actions in Iraq but "paid for the policy of his country." Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a strong supporter of the US-led coalition in Iraq and his country has some 3,000 troops there.

In a message to Sirri on November 19, the Islamic Army expressed its "respect for the ulemas (Islamic scholars)," adding that its "Islamic court would rule on the fate of the two Frenchmen."

On television Wednesday, French President Jacques Chirac thanked "all those religious authorities in France and the world who provided cooperation and support with an exceptional burst of solidarity."

  Go to Latest Posting

---

Comments 0

---