SEOUL, March 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The South Korean journalists association lodged a strong protest to the US forces in Iraq on Monday, demanding an official apology for their detention of threeSouth Korean television crew members last Saturday.

    "It is a suppression of the press to have journalists handcuffed and detained for four hours," the Journalists Association of Korea said in a statement.

    "The US will have to recognize clearly that this incident blemished the image of the nation which describes itself as the center of free democracy," it said.

    Three men from South Korean state-run Korea Broadcasting Systemwere arrested by US troops in front of the Palestine Hotel in downtown Baghdad after a sniffer dog at the hotel led the troops into suspicion that their luggage contained explosives.

    Although their identities were confirmed by the South Korean Embassy in Baghdad, it took four hours for them to be released. And no traces of explosives were found in their luggage, which contained cameras, local media reported

    The journalists were also quoted by local media as saying that their treatment by the American soldiers was "arrogant and inhumane."

    The detention took place as South Korea was arranging plans to deploy 3,000 fresh troops to Iraq in late April after a request from Washington. The South Korean troops are assigned to reconstruction and security operations in Kirkuk, 250 kilometers north of Baghdad. Enditem