Journalists in Danger

Reporters Without Borders today repeated its concern about press freedom in Israel after the beating of two Palestinian photographers working for international news agencies and the official questioning of a journalist about a report concerning alleged corruption by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Early in the morning on Monday 6 January 2003, a unit of the Palestinian General Intelligence arrested the Gaza based correspondent for the Qatari TV news channel, al-Jazeera. Seif al-Din Shahin, 34, from Rafah was arrested as a result of a report that was broadcast last night on al-Jazeera.

On 24 December 2002, Reporters sans Frontières criticised the interior minister’s decision to close the radical Islamic weekly “Sawt al-Haq wa Al-Hurriya” (“Voice of Truth and Freedom”) for two years, on grounds that it threatens national security, as very excessive.

The International Federation of Journalists said today that Israeli border police who terrorized a group of journalists and assaulted a cameraman in West Bank city of Hebron reflected a “continuing mood of prejudice and intolerance” among Israeli security personnel in their dealings with media.

On October 31, a number of journalists were reporting on an explosion that occurred in a house in Gaza. A number of people, who were located on the scene, assaulted the journalists. PCHR condemns the attack.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the release of two Palestinian journalists detained by Israeli authorities for five months and urges the Israeli government to release another journalist still in detention.

The International Federation of Journalists today called the shooting of a Palestinian journalist in Ramallah during street protests over Israeli actions in the town a “new and tragic act of media persecution that compounds Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.”

The International Federation of Journalists has accused the Israeli authorities of a vendetta against a private radio station which has been raided, shelled and prosecuted in a series of attacks, the latest at the beginning of September.