French TV station airs pleas of Taliban hostages who face death threat

French TV bends to Taliban, airs hostage pleas

PARIS — A French television station bowed Monday to Taliban demands and broadcast pleas from two French journalists held captive in Afghanistan who are facing the threat of death unless a prisoner-hostage swap is worked out.

French officials declined to comment on the threat and said they were consulting with the relatives of the two journalists who were captured in December in Afghanistan while covering France’s military presence northeast of Kabul.

The Taliban circulated a video statement by the hostages that was posted on an Islamist Web site on Sunday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors extremist communications. It demanded a French TV broadcast of the comments and said three months of negotiations had failed.

Then, in a statement e-mailed to news organizations Monday, the Taliban group said it had submitted a list of detainees — meaning not senior figures — held in Afghan or U.S. jails to the French government. It suggested the journalists would only be released if those prisoners were, too.

The e-mail said France’s government should pressure the U.S. and Afghan governments to meet the demands. Only those two governments hold detainees in Afghanistan.

France 3, a publicly funded television channel, the journalists’ employer, showed a still photo from the video during its lunchtime news broadcast in a brief report Monday. It aired excerpts of the video during its evening broadcast but blurred the two men’s faces.

In the e-mail, the Taliban said the video “is not aimed at making a media drama,” and “the main goal is to get released the miserable detainees … who are now living a life under torture and brutalities.” It did not elaborate.

No timetable was laid out in the video statement or in the e-mail in English, which called for “swiftness and urgency” without which “the life of the French will face danger.”

Asked about the demands, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero declined to comment beyond saying: “We prefer to show the greatest discretion on this point,” because the safety of the hostages and the efforts to free them are at stake.

“We remain completely mobilized both in Paris and Kabul in a view to obtaining their freedom,” Valero said. “We reiterate our firm condemnation of this kidnapping.”

Valero said French diplomats are in close contact with the editorial leadership of France 3 as well as the families of the hostages, who met with ministry officials Monday.

The French government has said it was cooperating with NATO to win the journalists’ release, but has stated little publicly about the abductions. It hasn’t identified the journalists, though news reports have identified them by their first names, Stephane and Herve.

“It’s three months now that we’ve been held hostage and the Taliban asked us to send this message,” said Herve, in a beard, glasses and a red sweater as he read from a piece of paper in the video.

“They ask that all their demands be satisfied which wasn’t the case, according to them, when they gave you their demands,” he said.

A France 3 reporter summarized part of Herve’s statement — that the two men are threatened with execution if the video is not aired and if the French government does not meet Taliban demands.

In a statement read by the anchor, France 3 journalists and personnel said they “are conscious that the video is blackmail” and “condemn it.” However, they justified the airing of the video “in the face of the threat” hanging over their colleagues.

Three others, including their Afghan driver and translator, are also being held, Herve said.

Network officials said the situation was wrenching.

“We are really in the midst of a very complicated exercise,” said Paul Nahon, a deputy head of news at France 3. He requested news organizations delay airing the video until the hostages’ relatives had seen it.

Yann Fossurier, who heads the France 3 journalists’ association, criticized the government’s handling of the case.

“We have a government that has sought to create a polemic, to criticize the journalists, and point the finger,” he said. “Today once again with the new threat that weighs on our colleagues, it makes things even more unbearable.”

At the network’s Paris headquarters, where Fossurier spoke to Associated Press Television News, wall posters spelled out the journalists’ first names and noted they have been held in captivity for 104 days.

“This is the first time there is a real threat to execute the two journalists,” Jean-Francois Julliard, the head of Reporters Without Borders, told APTN. “It’s something that is very worrying.”

The pair disappeared Dec. 30 along with two or three Afghan employees while traveling in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, where French soldiers are fighting the insurgents as part of a NATO mission.

Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders criticized comments in February by the then-head of France’s armed forces, who said France had spent over euro10 million to try to find and free the journalists.

In January, the watchdog group expressed its surprise after President Nicolas Sarkozy’s top adviser, Claude Gueant, told French radio that French officials had asked the journalists not to “venture out this way because there are risks,” and said they had displayed “guilty” imprudence.

“The scoop must not be sought at any price,” Gueant said then.

__

APTN senior producer Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris and Associated Press Writer Robert H. Reid in Kabul contributed to this report.