TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) — Christof Rueter, a journalist working for the German magazine Stern, told the Mehr News Agency that human rights organizations should make efforts to obtain the release of the reporters, journalists, and filmmakers detained by U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq.

Over a hundred days have passed since the arrest of Saeid Aboutaleb and Soheil Karimi, two Iranian documentary filmmakers who had traveled to Iraq to make a documentary about life during the occupation.

Reuter said that the international community and human rights organizations in particular should take prompt action to obtain the release of the journalists detained in Iraq.

He said that a group of reporters, journalists, and filmmakers traveled to Iraq following the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, the former chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), in order to report on the mourning ceremony for Hakim, despite the insecurity in Iraq and the arrest of a number of Iraqi reporters by U.S. forces.

Reuter stated that the journalists were unable to properly cover the ceremony because of the intimidating atmosphere in Iraq. “Then we realized that a large number of reporters, journalists, and filmmakers were under surveillance by U.S. forces, and despite our concerns and fear, we asked the U.S. forces why they were detaining a group of journalists who had no aim other than disseminating information.”

Reuter stated that after returning from Iraq they had tried to find a solution to this problem and wrote letters to human rights organizations, but all their efforts had come to nothing.

“We asked human rights organizations to take specific measures to obtain the release of the reporters, journalists, and filmmakers detained in Iraq,” he said.