Posted on 01/18/2006 9:07:26 AM PST by jimbo123
Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq have been released early.
The six were freed because there was insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said.
The US forces have refused to confirm the releases, but say they would not be based on any operational activities.
The group holding US journalist Jill Carroll has said she will die unless all Iraqi women prisoners are freed.
The status of prisoners held by coalition forces is reviewed twice a week by a committee made up of the justice, human rights and interior ministries, and a representative of the US-led coalition.
The justice ministry spokesman said it was this committee which had studied the cases of the six women and found insufficient evidence against them.
However, the US military stressed that decisions over such matters were a detailed process that were unrelated to any other operational activity.
The demand that all Iraqi female prisoners held by coalition forces should be released was made in a video of Ms Carroll which aired on Arab TV channel al-Jazeera on Tuesday.
Her captors said the 28-year-old journalist would be killed within 72 hours if their demand was not met.
The video showed Ms Carroll apparently speaking to the camera, but did not include her voice.
Al-Jazeera did not say where it got the tape. The station itself has called for her release.
It was the first sighting of Ms Carroll since gunmen abducted her in Baghdad 10 days earlier, fatally wounding her translator during the attack.
Past demands
She is the 31st foreign journalist kidnapped in Iraq since the invasion almost three years ago, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres.
Ms Carroll has been a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, among others.
She had been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian and other media organisations for the past three years, the Christian Science Monitor said in a statement.
The Monitor describes itself as a non-religious newspaper.
It is not the first time that the abductors of Western hostages in Iraq have called for the release of women prisoners.
In October 2004, Briton Ken Bigley and two American hostages were beheaded by members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who had demanded female prisoners be freed.
At the time the Bush administration said that only two women were being held in Iraq - Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, nicknamed by the US "Mrs Anthrax" and Rihab Taha, also known as "Dr Germ".
The pair were amongst a group of eight senior aides to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who were released in December 2005.
In November 2004, British aid worker Margaret Hassan was abducted and murdered in Iraq. Before her death she appeared in a similar hostage video calling for foreign troop withdrawals and the release of women prisoners.
STAY SAFE!!!
I agree with you....but...meeting the terms of terrorists who kidnap is like leaning into a right cross. The woman may have been a mite careless, but that doesn't mean other people who are being more prudent won't get captured and held for a specific purpose of the terrorists.
Exactly.
Set 'em free. But tag 'em first. Then follow the birdies to the nest.
it won't satisfy them. they'll still kill her because of the two they didn't release. you can't appease these barbarians. if i could work my will into this if they murder this journalist then i would execute the two prisoners i was still holding.
That'd make sense... implant them with a tracking microchip, cut 'em lose, and then drop a bomb on the viper's nest.
I really don't get why the Christian Science Magazine would send a woman over there anyway knowing how they feel about women. Just plain dumb.
I heard that these females were set to be released.
THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REPORTER.
IF IT HAD TO DO WITH THE REPORTER THEY WOULD HAVE RELEASED THEM ALL.
THIS HAS NO CONNECTION WITH THE REPORTER
Are you in Iraq now?
If yes, what's the take on this there?
Are they trying to find her?
They didn't win anything.
The kidnappers wanted all the female hostages released.
The court said there was no evidence against these detainees.
The media is again being derelict in their duty by making fire out of a non story.
The kidnappers demands were for all the hostages to be released and the coalition is refusing to release the two other female suspects that have evidence against them.
Who cares what the arab world thinks anyway.
Oh, I wasn't arguing with you there. I am solidly against any negotaitions with terrorists, EVER, period.
The point I was trying to make (and not doing it very well; it's getting late here and the eyelids are getting heavy) is that if people weren't so incredibly stupid, situations like this wouldn't happen so often. She has no business being in that situation to begin with.
It's like those idiots who ran the checkpoint by the airport last year (AFTER their government had given in to the terrorists). A guy lost his life, but it was a phenomenally stupid thing to do. They were lucky to only lose one person in that little escapade.
In other words, I'm going slightly off-point and ranting about stupidity. A pet peeve of mine.
Just my guess.
This was an "inside" job. They have had her for 10 days. All of the sudden, 72 hours to free the females? They get to appear as changing policy, and do not have to kill a civilian. Win-win for them in the Arab world. So what? As long as the woman is not killed, and no ransom paid; what is the harm to the US? This is an Iraqi/Iraqi thing.
Sigh.
Time for bed.
re: someone who does boneheaded things like that
The do these boneheaded things because they are of the liberal mindset and simply don't understand or accept that there are people in this world who are evil, not misunderstood or misguided but purely evil, who will not bat an eye at beheading them. It would seem that someone with even casual observational skills would realize that in that part of the world the boneheaded become the beheaded, with concern or respect for whose side they are on.
She and her family are in my heart and in my prayers.
If yes, what's the take on this there?
Yes, but I'm not privy to whatever efforts are being made to recover her. I hope she gets out safely and I hope other people here learn from this if they're so inclined to do something so idiotic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.