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Israel
roughs up, threatens, arrests, bans, targets by gunfire, injures,
withdraws press cards or deports foreign journalists: RSF
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An index of
countries according to their respect for press freedom, published
Wednesday October 23, for the first time by Reporters Sans Frontieres
(RSF), indicates that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a greater
respecter of press freedom than Israel.
RWB,
a human rights group monitoring the treatment of journalists across the
world, has ranked Israel in 92nd place in the Press Freedom Index, while
the PA was 10 places higher at 82nd, the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper
said on its website.
According
to the organization, Israel's attitude toward press freedom is
"ambivalent".
The
index states that while the Israeli government generally respects the
local media's freedom of expression, there have been several recorded
violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
which guarantees press freedom and which Israel has signed.
"Since
the start of the Israeli army's incursions into Palestinian towns and
cities in March 2002," the report states, "very many
journalists have been roughed up, threatened, arrested, banned from
moving around, targeted by gunfire, wounded or injured, had their press
cards withdrawn or been deported."
Israel
has also killed foreign journalists covering Israeli incursions into
Palestinian cities and towns.
An
Italian photographer was intentionally killed by Israeli gunfire when
covering the army's occupation of the West Bank city of Ramallah in
March this year.
The
body of Raffaele Ciriello was repatriated early Thursday March 14 amidst
international anger. His remains were flown back to Linate airport in
Milan aboard an Italian military plane accompanied by his wife, a
representative of the Italian foreign ministry and of Corriere della
Sera, the newspaper he was working for at the time he was shot by an
Israeli tank.
His
killing sparked anger among newspaper commentators in Italy who charged
he was targeted intentionally. "It is difficult not to think that
this burst of machinegun fire against Raffaele Ciriello was intended to
stop him working," the Rome daily Il Messaggero said in an
editorial. "The eyes of photojournalists and television cameramen
are unforgiving," it said.
La
Stampa, published in Turin, said Ciriello was a level-headed and careful
member of the foreign news corps and not given to taking risks. "We
had the impression that inside [the tank] someone had taken his time
aiming," Amedeo Ricucci, a reporter from Italy's state television
RAI, told the newspaper.
Palestinian
photographer Hossam Abu-Alan was dumped by the Israeli army suddenly and
without any explanation at a checkpoint near his hometown of Al-Khalil
(Hebron), following six months of detention, Aence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
And
the 47-year-old AFP staffer still does not know why he was jailed.
Abu-Alan's
plight reflects the fate of hundreds of Palestinians held in
administrative detention, a measure allowing a person to be held for
six-month periods, indefinitely renewable, without charge or trial, by
order of an Israeli government or military official rather than a judge.
More
than 1,000 Palestinians are currently jailed under the same conditions,
according to the Israeli occupation army.
A
few hours after being left by the Israeli army at Tarkumia checkpoint,
some 10 kilometers (six miles) west of Al-Khalil, Abu-Alan, a father of
three, made it home, where he was welcomed by hundreds of well-wishers,
both family and friends.
His
house's facade still bears the impact of heavy machine-gun bullets
sprayed by an Israeli military patrol on April 29.
But
the Israeli army never explained why it had targeted the place.
Abu-Alan
was arrested a few days before that, on April 24, at the Beit Eit Einun
military checkpoint as he was on his way to photograph a nearby funeral
of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.
Blindfolded
and handcuffed, he was kept in the back of an Israeli armored personnel
transport for two days.
"I
thought I was going to be released that same day," he says, holding
four-year-old daughter Ranin on his lap.
On
the third day, he recalls, he was taken to an Israeli military base:
"They took off the blindfold and presented me to a man dressed in
civilian clothes," who, in all likelihood, was an agent of Israel's
internal security services, the Shin Beth.
He
says their encounter lasted three minutes and that the man never accused
him of anything, instead threatened that "you're going to be in
jail for a long time. When you get out, your hair will be white and
you'll walk with a cane."
That
same night, Abu-Alan was transferred to the Israeli Ofer military
detention camp near Ramallah, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, where
he was to share the fate of hundreds of men also held under
administrative detention and packed for months on end under tents.
"We
were 45 prisoners per tent, like sardines," he says, constantly
interrupted by a flow of visitors pouring into his small living room.
The
prisoners were sleeping on thin foam mattresses, living on little food.
The
Israeli army told AFP that Abu-Alan was allegedly assisting the
"Tanzim organization," Israel's term for Palestinian
resistance groups, but declined to produce any detail to back up the
accusation.
On
July 9, he was transferred to yet another notorious Israeli detention
center.
The
living conditions in Ketziot, in the southern Negev desert, were harsher
than in Ofer.
Nights
were bitterly cold and days sizzling hot.
The
tents were not insulated and the detainees were exposed to scorpions and
snakes that thrive in that climate.
On
July 22, an Israeli military tribunal extended his detention for another
five months but eventually cut it down to three.
On
Monday October 21 at midnight, Abu-Alan was informed that he would be
freed the next day without any explanation.
"I
had a sleepless night," he recalls.
"The
goal here [of administrative detention] is not to keep people
forever," but to prevent attacks, claimed an Israeli army
spokesman, explaining Abu-Alan's liberation while denying he had been
mistakenly detained.
Tuesday
morning, Abu-Alan took off his jail clothes and dressed in the dark suit
he was wearing the day of his arrest.
He
then boarded a bus with another detainee, guarded by six Israeli
soldiers.
Two
hours later, he was a free man.
"To
this day, I have no clue as to why I was arrested," he says,
stressing that he was not interrogated even once during his six-month
detention.
From
his time in jail, he kept two souvenirs: two stones he brought back from
Ketziot, on which a fellow prisoner carved out his name and those of his
wife and children.
