Release of Jill Carroll : A "huge relief"

Reporters Without Borders hailed the news of the release of US hostage in Iraq, Jill Carroll, as a “huge relief”, saying that the campaign on her behalf had not been in vain. The international press freedom organisation also praised the “exemplary” courage and determination of her family. “We thank all those throughout the world, particularly the major Arabic media, who campaigned for the release of this young journalist,” the organisation said. But it added, “Our campaign will not be over until the three Iraqi reporters, Rim Zeid, Marwan Khazaal and Ali Abdullah Fayad have been released in their turn”. Reporters Without Borders expressed its extreme anxiety about a surge in kidnapping and murders of journalists in Iraq. "To date, at least 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed and 39 others have been kidnapped in the country since the start of the conflict, on 20 March 2003. This targeted brutality is repugnant and threatens the existence of independent news and information in Iraq,” the organisation added. Head of the Islamic Party in Iraq, Tariq al Hashimi, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on 30 March 2006 that Jill Carroll had been released in the morning. A few hours later a source at the Iraqi interior ministry said that the journalist was in good health and had been taken to Baghdad's heavily-defended “Green Zone”. Jill Carroll's family and her newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, confirmed her release. Carroll, who worked for the US daily as well as for Italian and Jordanian media, was abducted on 7 January 2006 in the Adel district, west of Baghdad. Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyah was shot dead during the kidnapping. Yesterday, the journalist's twin sister, Katie Carroll, made an appeal to the kidnappers on Arabic television channels. In the past weeks, several Sunni religious figures in Iraq and elsewhere in the world had called for her release. Journalists Rim Zeid and Marwan Khazaal of the TV channel al-Sumariya were kidnapped in Baghdad, on 1st February 2006. Ali Abdullah Fayad, journalist on the tri-weekly al-Safir was abducted in Kut, south-east of the capital on 21 March 2006.