The Palestinian Authority massive intimidation of journalists
Omar | 07.10.2002 10:46
http://palestinefacts.org/pf_faq_palestine_palestinian_press.php www.palestinefacts.com
The Palestinian Authority (PA) -- in fact, all Arab regimes -- are undemocratic and bear no sense of responsibility to protect freedom of the press. Censorship is routine.
The largest Palestinian newspaper is the East Jerusalem Al-Quds. Unfortunately, its editor can be jailed for publishing anything that Yasser Arafat considers unfavorable to him. In the classic style of dictatorships, in the first two years after the Palestinian Authority took over Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza in 1994, security forces made more than thirty arrests of journalists and editors of all political leanings, with detentions lasting from several hours to a few weeks. Reporters Sans Frontiers, a watchdog group based in Paris, released a report at the end of 1995 deploring the Palestinian Authority's policy of suspending newspapers and employing threats and violence against journalists. It also criticized the press law issued in 1995, which prohibits publication of everything from security secrets to immoral or blasphemous material.
In the electronic media, the Voice of Palestine radio station has been primarily used for anti-Semitic, anti-Israel incitement while the TV station mostly does the same or covers Yasser Arafat's public appearances.
Since the Palestinian Authority does not directly control the Western media, they have resorted to physical intimidation to skew the coverage their way. Through both official policy and covert methods, the Palestinian Authority has kidnapped the truth. The reference article Palestinian Intimidation of Journalists lists these incidents and more:
British photographer Mark Seager told how he was punched in the face by a Palestinian and had his camera smashed to the floor when he tried to photograph Palestinians engaged in violent activities.
Aguirre Bertrand of France's TF1 says that Palestinian police took a videotape of from his crew at gunpoint.
Chicago Tribune reporter Hugh Dellios was severely beaten by Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City while covering Palestinian riots.
Canadian Broadcasting Company foreign correspondent Neil Macdonald was threatened by a group of Arab rioters in Nablus.
In a now-famous incident, the barbaric lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 2000, PA operatives did their best to confiscate and destroy tape of the grisly event. According to firsthand reports, a Polish television crew was surrounded by Palestinian security forces, beaten and relieved of their film of the lynching. A British photographer, Mark Seager wrote in London's Sunday Telegraph Oct. 22:
I was composing the picture when I was punched in the face by a Palestinian. Another Palestinian pointed right at me, shouting 'no picture, no pictures,' while another guy hit me in the face and said, 'Give me your film.' One guy just pulled the camera from me and smashed it to the floor.
But most of the TV cameramen were Palestinians. Given PA intimidation of Palestinian journalists, it's not surprising that almost all of them, except for one working for the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera and another cameraman for the independent Italian station, RTI, meekly handed over their film. Italian TV's Ricardo Christiano was forced to congratulate and bless the Palestinian Authority, and then apologize for the Italian who did the filming. Israel Defense Forces used the images to target and arrest the perpetrators, infuriating the Palestinians who went into a frenzy of media intimidation as a result. Officially, the Palestinians deny that any tape was seized.
Non-partisan sources, such as the US State Department, Amnesty International, Freedom House, and even Palestinian rights groups report that the Palestinian Authority routinely harasses, arrests, beats and tortures journalists who print or report items critical of the PA or Arafat.
Palestinian police closed down Hebron's Nawras TV for discussing issues involved in the Palestinian teachers' strike, and the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence called Khalid Amayreh in for interrogation about the content his Hebron newspaper, Akhbar al-Khalil. When Mr. Amayreh cited press freedom guarantees and questioned the legality of this interrogation, they laughed: "Where do you think you are, Switzerland?"
Such heavy-handed treatment fostered self-censorship throughout the Palestinian media. All the major dailies enjoy cozy relations with the PA, and the mainstream press routinely avoids coverage of sensitive issues such as PA corruption and mismanagement, human-rights abuses by security forces, or any reporting that might cast Arafat in a negative light.
Sources and additional reading on this topic:
Palestinian Intimidation of the Press
http://honestreporting.com/followup/background_press.asp Journalists describe constant Palestinian intimidation
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/intimidation.html Palestinian Intimidation of Journalists
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Palestinian_Intimidation_of_Journalists.asp
Omar
e-mail:
OmarSarid@yahoo.com
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
Perhaps for balance ... nah!
07.10.2002 12:09
Or perhaps you could underline israeli/jewish 'business' owned press in the west.
Or perhaps you could feature reports from some of the many press watchdogs about israeli media.
Or perhaps you could ouline the many cases of jounalists being intimidated, threatened, beaten, shot and killed in israel and the occupied territories over the past two years, by the IDF.
Then again, perhaps all you want to do is distort reality, blame the victim and carry on stealing land and hope from an oppressed people (and under such conditions do you think it is easy to operate a 'free' press, let alone a goverment.
No justice no peace.
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
yep you could be right
07.10.2002 13:31
since the middle ages europe the west,whatever, has been fucking the arabs over , most of the arab regimes are pro western "elected" dictaters. Bush Blair and other organized crime leaders are continuing traditions started by the crusaders knights templar (medievil organized criminals)
one thing that you fanatix should take note.
racism is not something that is exclusive to jews and zionazis, it also applies to arabs and it might surprise you to know that not every dumb fucker in UK hates arabs despite
years of anti arab education and propaganda ..
if you got a good one in ya go fuck yerself
Lawrence
PA is corrupt.
07.10.2002 15:23
The Palestinian Authority is corrupt, there have been cases of censorship and the famous case where the head of a newspaper was thrown into jail for not putting a meeting between Arafat and a Patriarch on the front page.
This does not justify Israeli apartheid, or the ilegal occupation.
One of the great tragedies of the Palestinian struggle has been the PLO's leadership. It was unfortunate when the grassroots leadership of the first intifada was replaced by the return of Fatah bureaucrats from Tunis.
However, I must resist the slurs on Palestinian journalists - the writer above repeats the usual Zionist lies which claim that Palestinian radio station etc. are anti-semitic, unfortunately if we dig beneath the surface we usually find anti-semitism refers to any criticism of Israel.
Many Palestinians would like to replace their (elected) leader, but given the current Israeli incursions it is very difficult to operate as a normal democracy.
Hopefully the new intifada will begin to institute another revolution from below.
END ISRAELI APARTHEID!
ANTONIUS CLIFFUS JNR.
more israeli crimes against humanity
07.10.2002 16:28
For crimes against Journalists see below:
No matter how hard they try to cover their warcrimes by targeting journalists, no matter how hard they try to ethnically cleanse Palestine by building illegal settlements causing more refugees, no matter how many palestinian children they kill and main, PALESTINE will be FREE. The world has born witness to their suffering for the last 55 years but will not remain silent anymore!
mike
Good facts
08.10.2002 09:12
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E., the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be. What will we tell our grandchildren we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?
Joel
zionist lies....see above
09.10.2002 16:17
All the above statements you have made are utter crap and can be proven to be so by even a basic knowledge of Palestine's history. Palestine has existed for over 2000 years and will continue to exist forever, no matter what warcriminals like sharon and bush say.
Zionism, the racist talmudic ideology, has failed.
don
May I remind joel ...
10.10.2002 09:29
a)israel regards itself as a secular society, therefore the premise that jerusalem must be the capital of israel because of religious considerations (should) have no influence on the political outcome. The fact that it does only shows that, once again, the israeli authorities, and you joel, regard your rights over others to be god given and against the vast mass of humanity (racism).
b)Your dodgy history [histrionic] lessons only serve to show how stupid and arrogant your arguements have become. The history of the region is DEBATABLE.
The veracity of the documents that, you suggest, support the idea that only israel has the political, religious and moral right to the region are DEBATABLE.
The potted history [of the past 50 years] you present as fact would be debatable if it wasn't so LAUGHABLE.
Wake up joel, either accept that what is happening in your name is criminal, is despised by free thinking people everywhere and has no basis in law or justice, or carry on with your head up your arse and potentially add to a situation where everbody loses.
No justice no peace.
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com