ROMANIAN HOSTAGES RELEASED

More than two months after being abducted by insurgents in Iraq, Romanian journalists Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and Ovidiu Ohanesian, and their Iraqi-American translator Mohamed Munaf, are free again, report the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF). On 22 May 2005, they were released from captivity and sent home to Romania the next day.

The four individuals had been abducted on 28 March in Baghdad by a group calling itself the Muadh ibn Jabal Brigade. The captors had threatened to kill the journalists if Romania did not withdraw its 800 troops from Iraq, a demand the Romanian government rejected.

Romanian President Traian Basescu said that his country?s intelligence agents negotiated the release of the journalists and that no ransom was paid. Ion, a reporter, and Miscoci, a cameraman, work for Prima TV. Ohanesian is a reporter for the daily newspaper "Romania Libera".

The news has revived hopes that two other hostages - French reporter Florence Aubenas and Iraqi translator Hussein al-Saad - may be freed soon. Aubenas, a veteran reporter for "Libération", and al-Saad have been held hostage since 5 January.

RSF and the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) have been mobilising support for the hostages, including organising a joint appeal from more than 150 senior editors and media executives across Europe that calls for their release http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13002).
According to CPJ, at least 30 journalists have been abducted in Iraq since April 2004. Two abducted journalists have been killed, while 27 have been released. RSF notes that two journalists remain missing since the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003 - ITV reporter Frédéric Nérac and Isam Hadi Muhsin Al-Shumary, a cameraman for Germany's Suedostmedia.

Visit these links:

- RSF Iraq Updates: http://www.rsf.org/special_iraq_en.php3- RSF's Free Aubenas and al-Saad Campaign: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=461- CPJ Resource on Iraq: http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_conflict_main.html- Committee to Release Aubenas, Al-Saad: http://www.pourflorenceethussein.org/english/index.shtml- Frédéric Nérac: http://www.fred-nerac.info/