One of the Muslim world's most influentual figures in Europe called Friday for the unconditional release of a French journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad five months ago, as well as a prompt withdrawal of US and other foreign military forces in Iraq. Sheikh Hussein Halawa, secretary general of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said he was ready to go to Iraq if necessary to secure the release of Florence Aubenas. Aubenas, a senior correspondent for the French newspaper Liberation, and her interpreter Hussein Hanun al-Saadi went missing after leaving the journalist's hotel in Baghdad on January 5. "I must say that I am very much against the captivity of the French journalist," Halawa, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, told AFP in Dublin on the 155th day of Aubenas's disappearance. "I would like to state that this is against the Islam that I believe in and I call on them to release her and all the captives they have taken." Halawa felt confident that his appeal would be heard by the kidnappers, five days after a similar plea was sent out from Saudi Arabia by Sheikh Abdullah Ibn Bayya, vice president of the International Organisation of Ulema and a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research. "After the call made by Sheikh Ibn Bayya, and after my call today, I think this will touch their hearts (those of the hostage takers) and that they will soon release the captives," he said.
Halawa said the overall situation in Iraq, more than two years after the US and British invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime, remains "very painful," and he urged foreign military forces to leave as soon as possible. "I call on people in Iraq to renounce fanaticism and tribalism and come together and unite," he said. "I also call on the occupying forces to leave Iraq. The day they leave Iraq, then the people of Iraq can unite, I trust the Iraqi people and I think they can look after themselves and manage their own affairs." Referring to the Aubenas case, Halawa said: "I think the kidnapping has a negative impact on those who don't understand the true image of Islam. But there are a lot of people who do understand the true image of Islam and are still taking these kind of actions," he added.
| Doesn't miss much, does he? |
Based in Ireland [ ! ], the European Council for Fatwa and Research is a private foundation, created in 1997, that brings together more than 30 Muslim religious leaders, jurists and other prominent figures living in Europe, the Middle East, Mauritania, Pakistan and Sudan.