Al-Jazeera to Air a Report on the Families of the Kidnapped Romanian Journalists

Forty eight days had passed since three Romanian journalists had been kidnapped in Iraq: Marie-Jeanne Ion, Sorin Miscoci and Ovidiu Ohanesian, along their Iraqi guide, Muhamad Munaf.

Romanian authorities gave their last press release on the fate of the four people on April 27. Then ended the dead-line the kidnappers set for Romania to take out its troops from Iraq in exchange for the journalists.
This time Al-Jazeera television station sent a crew to Romania to cover the families of the kidnapped journalists.

A reporter and a cameraman, Al-Jazeera correspondents in the Balkan region, arrived Wednesday to Romania, said the president of the Islamic Cultural League in Romania, Fariz Allaqtta.
According to Allaqtta, the Al-Jazeera reporter Samir Hasan already visited the Prima TV television station where Ion and Miscoci work, and contacted over the phone the families of two of the journalists. "We have a tight schedule: we start work at 6:30 a.m. and end it at 11 p.m.," said Allaqtta.

In the mean time, the European Platform for Regulating the Audiovisual adopted yesterday, at its meeting in Sarajevo, an appeal "for the urgent and unconditional release" of the Romanian journalists and French hostages. Cristina Trepcea and Gabriela Stoica, representing the Romanian National Council for the Audiovisual, suggested the adoption of the appeal.

PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu said yesterday, during his visit to Sofia, that "intelligence we have so far is that the journalists are alive, but we do not know when they will be released." He added that "we use various channels for negotiating their release. I have true hope that this will occur, since we are working very hard on this."
Tariceanu said that Ion, Miscoci and Ohanesian are alive "but no other comments are warranted to not interfere with the negotiating process." Tariceanu attended in Sofia the International Liberal Congress.