A Pakistan court has sentenced two French journalists to six months in jail on Saturday, for violating visa regulations.

Court officials said in Islamabad that reporter Marc Epstein and photographer Jean-Paul Guilloteau of the French weekly L'Express visited Quetta, the capital of the Southwestern Baluchistan province, without proper visas.

The two pleaded guilty to the charges.

The pair was arrested on December 16, 2003 and was freed on bail eight days later.

Last month, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) had called on the Pakistan authorities to release the two journalists.

The organization also voiced concern that there was no word on the whereabouts of Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, a Pakistani journalist who had accompanied them to Quetta.

Reporters Without Borders said the imposition of visa and travel restrictions on foreign reporters obstructed investigative journalism, and it urged the government to review its rules regarding the provision of visas to the foreign news media.

Epstein and Guilloteau have done a lot of reporting in Pakistan. In 2001, Epstein received the Diplomatic Press Prize for a report he and Rizvi produced on the situation in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Agencies