A French journalist has been held in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad for days for taking pictures without prior permission, an Iraqi media watchdog said Thursday. "The Iraqi police arrested a French journalist in Baghdad last week for taking pictures without getting official permission and he is now at one of the capital prisons," the Baghdad-based Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) said in a statement issued on its website.
JFO urged the Iraqi government to immediately free Nadir Dendoun, correspondent of French monthly magazine Le Monde Diplomatique, the statement said. It also demanded an official apology to the journalist for the arrest, saying that such act "is dangerous to the reputation of Iraq."
JFO asked the government to allow local and foreign journalists to "work without prior permission from the security authorities." The Iraqi security forces arrested Dendoun last week while he was taking pictures in Baghdad's southern district of Doura.