DUBAI, Aug 30 (AFP) - The head of the London-based Islamic Observatory called Monday for the release of the two French journalists abducted in Iraq, 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," Yasser al-Serri, whose institution defends Muslims around the world and is widely respected by Islamic groups, told AFP by telephone from London.
Serri said the two journalists were known to "present the right image of Islam and of Islamic civilisation."
Radio France correspondent Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper went missing in Iraq on August 20.
A group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, which wants France to revoke a controversial law banning the Islamic headscarf in state schools, claimed their kidnapping in a video tape sent to al-Jazeera television.
The group issued a 48-hour ultimatum to France over the headscarf ban late Saturday although it did not specifically threaten the two newsmen.
The kidnapping has stunned France, which was one of the fiercest opponents of the US-led war on Iraq and has resolved not to send any troops to the country, even in a peacekeeping capacity.