Anxious France Seeks Release Of Journalists Held Hostage In Iraq

PARIS, Aug 29 (AFP) - An anxious France on Sunday scrambled to obtain the release of two French journalists taken hostage in Iraq by Islamic militants demanding the rescinding of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in French schools.
The kidnappers from the Islamic Army in Iraq, the same group which killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni after taking him hostage, gave Paris a 48-hour ultimatum Saturday to meet its demands, Qatar-based Arabic-language Al-Jazeera television said citing "our own sources in Iraq."
The channel identified the kidnapped Frenchmen as missing journalists Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Paris daily Le Figaro and said it had received video footage of the two newsmen.
The pair went missing on August 20 after leaving Baghdad for the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf, where US forces were fighting Shiite Muslim militiamen.
The group is demanding that "France rescinds within 48 hours the law banning" Islamic headscarves in schools, describing the law as "an injustice and an attack on the Islamic religion and individual freedoms," Al-Jazeera said.
The French interior ministry announced a meeting had been called Sunday of the French Committee of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) by Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin.
A spokesman for the foreign ministry said in a statement: "More than ever the services of the French embassy in Baghdad, like the French authorities, are mobilized.
"Once again we call for the liberation of the two French journalists," he went on, adding that the ministry would not make any further comment at this stage.
Meanwhile the interior minister called for a meeting at 11 am (0900 GMT) of the CFCM, an umbrella body for the Muslim faith in France, to discuss the hostage taking. His ministry gave no further details about the meeting.
CFCM chairman Dalil Boubakeur said he was "shattered" by the "unworthy and odious blackmail" by the Islamic group that kidnapped the two newsmen.
Editors at the news organizations the two worked for expressed concern about their fate, but said they were relieved the pair were alive.
The main Sunni Muslim religious organisation appealed Saturday for the release of the journalists.
"In the name of the Committee of Ulemas we urge the kidnappers to release the two journalists," said Sheikh Abdessatar Abdelzhawad, a member of the committee, speaking on Al-Jazeera.
He simultaneously appealed to France to reconsider its decision to ban prominent religious insignia, including Muslim headscarves, in French state schools.
The French legislation, passed in March amid controversy and some overseas criticism, prohibits any ostentatious religious insignia, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, in state schools and universities.
The government introduced the law to stop what it saw as an increasingly radical stance by some students to assert their religious identity in schools in violation of a principle that such institutions should be strictly secular.
But the legislation -- due to go into effect in September when classes resume -- was widely criticized in many countries in the Arab world, which said it was an example of blatant discrimination against Muslims.
France is home to Europe's largest Muslim community, at about five million strong.
Demonstrations against the French legislation were held late last year and early this year in Lebanon, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, the Gaza Strip and in France itself, where a section of the Muslim community campaigned against the new regulation.
Kidnappings of journalists and other foreigners have become common in Iraq as insurgents attempt to force countries to withdraw their troops from the war-ravaged country or extort money.
However, both Chesnot and Malbrunot's employers and Sunni Muslim scholars had earlier expressed faith that if they had been kidnapped they would be safe because France had opposed the US-led war against Iraq.
Baldoni was killed after being held for a week, Al-Jazeera had reported and said it had a videotape showing the journalist after his execution, but decided not to release it as it would be too shocking for viewers.
Baldoni's captors had threatened to kill their hostage unless Italy withdrew its 3,000 troops from Iraq within 48 hours.