Al Jazeera is calling on Libyan authorities to set free Ahmad val ould Eddin, Ammar Al-Hamdan, and Kamel Al Tallou, who were detained earlier near Zintan and then imprisoned in Tripoli for three weeks.

Libyan authorities have not provided any information about why the journalists are being held.

Ahmad val ould Eddin first joined Al Jazeera in 2008. He worked as a correspondent in South Africa for a couple of years before he returned to the newsroom in Doha. He reported on Africa, which led him to cover Libya during the recent uprising. A Mauritanian, he has two daughters, Layla and Lubna. He writes a blog called "Kounach", in which he collects articles he published in several newspapers. He is a passionate reader of Arabic poetry, especially by Al-Mutanabbi.

Kamel Al-Tallou joined Al Jazeera as a cameraman recently, driven by his passion for journalism despite his medical education and background as a doctor. Al-Tallou studied medicine in Tripoli before working as a doctor in England until 2009. Kamel, a 43-year-old UK citizen, is married with three sons and one daughter.

Ammar Al-Hamdan is a Norwegian cameramen with a multicultural background. He is of Palestinian origin but born and raised in Baghdad. Al-Hamdan is married a Norwegian journalist and has worked in Al Jazeera's Oslo bureau since 2006.