KARACHI, Dec 21: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists has called for even-handed and rational treatment and immediate release of two French journalists, Mare Epstein and Jean-Paul Guillotean, and their colleague, a local freelance journalist Khawer Mehdi Rizvi, arrested in Karachi for violating some regulations governing the visit of foreigners.

In a press statement issued here on Sunday, PFUJ president Ahfaz-ur-Rahman said that Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau, are bona-fide, professional journalists who arrived in Pakistan through proper channel, on press visas in their capacity as journalists, although, in view of Pakistani regulations, they didn’t obtain permission to go to Quetta.

He observed that it seems the FIA, disregarding and ignoring facts, is trying to portray the entire matter in an overblown manner.

The fact is that Mare Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau are associated with the well-known French weekly L’Express. Mare Epstein was awarded the Diplomatic Press Prize in 2001, for a report he and Khawer Mehdi Rizvi produced on the situation in Pakistan’s western tribal areas.

Ahfaz ur Rahman said that while Epstein and Guilloteau are in jail, the FIA is refusing to divulge any information regarding the whereabouts of Mr Rizvi and this act amounts to brazen violation of basic human rights.

The FIA’s intent can be gauged from the fact that it is trying to brand Khawer Mehdi Rizvi as a fake journalist, although Mr Rizvi has not only worked with an English daily in Islamabad but has also been associated as a freelance journalist with various French newspapers and news agencies including, TF1, Liberation, Arte, France 2 and Le Monde, he said.

The PFUJ president said the government should release the three journalists immediately and remove all artificial obstacles in the way of independent activities of working journalists in the country.