“Baseless” Taliban accusation against kidnapped French journalists

Reporters Without Borders regards as baseless and unacceptable a claim by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid that Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier, two French TV journalists who have been held hostage for the past year in northwestern Afghanistan, were “engaged in gathering information that has the nature of intelligence gathering.” “These grave accusations are a lie,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “These two experienced France 3 journalists were doing their work as TV reporters when they were kidnapped. Identifying ‘reporting’ as ‘intelligence gathering’ is outrageous and constitutes a dangerous smear for all journalists working in sensitive areas.” Reporters Without Borders continues to campaign for the release of Ghesquière and Taponier and their three Afghan assistants, who were kidnapped with them, and reaffirms its support for their families. Mujahid’s statement, made on 1 January, is also worrying inasmuch as it increases tension between the government and Taliban and contrasts with the reassuring comments that the French authorities have been making. The journalists’ families and the journalistic community in France should be briefed about the progress of negotiations with their kidnappers. Calls for the release of the foreign and Afghan journalists held hostage in Afghanistan have been made repeatedly during the past year by Afghan journalists’ organizations and unions, senate president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi (who also heads the National Commission for Peace in Afghanistan), information and culture minister Makhdom Raheen and Council of Ulemas spokesman Fazel Ahamad Manawi. Rahimullah Samander, the head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, urged the Taliban on 27 December to “respect journalists’ independence” and to immediately release “the two French journalists and their three Afghan assistants.” Ghesquière and Taponier and their three Afghan assistants were kidnapped in the northwestern province of Kapisa on 29 December 2009. This is the longest that any French journalists have been held hostage since the late 1980s.