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Iraq: Taking Journalists Hostage Is a War Crime

Insurgent Group Must Immediately Release French Reporters Chesnot, Malbrunot

Taking hostages is a clear affront to the core humanitarian prohibition against threatening or harming civilians in a conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. The hostage-taking of two French journalists by an Iraqi insurgent group constitutes a war crime.

Human Rights Watch urged Iraqis of all political persuasions to condemn the hostage-taking and killing carried out by the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq for the claimed killing last week of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni and the kidnapping on August 20 of two French journalists, Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro.

“International law prohibits those offences that violate the most basic humanitarian principles,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “Taking hostages is one of the most serious crimes that can be committed in wartime.”

The insurgent group has threatened to kill Chesnot and Malbrunot unless the French government repeals a recent law banning students from wearing religious apparel—understood to include headscarves for Muslim girls—in state schools.

“No cause justifies the resort to such horrendous methods of blackmail. Hostage-taking negates victims’ most fundamental human rights and it cannot be invoked under the pretext of attaining another right,” said Whitson.

Human Rights Watch also called on the Islamic Army in Iraq to end its targeting of journalists as well as civilians in general.

“Taking journalists hostage also undermines freedom of expression,” said Whitson. “Such attacks deter journalists from reporting on the conflict, including attacks that may put Iraqi civilians at great risks.”

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