AFP confirmed that its reporters Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt, as well as Joe Raedle from Getty, were released on Wednesday after being arrested on Saturday in Ajdabiya.
In a statement, AFP chairman and chief executive Emmanuel Hoog said their release is "the fruit of the mobilisation of the entire AFP
editorial staff and the agency as a whole".
"I thank everyone in the company for their efforts, the French
government for its determination to find a just and happy outcome and
the Libyan authorities for their promptness, following my urgent
request, in freeing the journalists whose sole mission was to report on
the situation currently playing out in Libya."
Their release follows that of four New York Times journalists earlier this week, who reported on what they called "days of brutality" in detention in Libya in a joint article on nytimes.com.
On Monday the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that since the revolt in Libya began in February, more than 50 attacks on the press have been documented including two fatalities, more than 33 detentions and five assaults.
Image by KoS on Wikimedia. Some rights reserved.
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