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Media
Watch Dog: 11 Reporters under Israeli Attack in Less Than A Week
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| Photojournalists
lay down cameras, hold posters of murdered Italian journalist
Raffaele Ciriello, during a memorial ceremony in Ramallah. |
PARIS, April 3 (IslamOnline & News
Agencies) - At least 11 journalists have come under gunfire and three
of them have been hit since the Israeli occupation army declared
Ramallah a "closed military zone" and barred the media from
the West Bank city during the last week, said a report issued by a
media-watch dog organization Wednesday.
Reporters
San Frontiers (RSF or Reporters Without Borders) said that this is the
first such ban since the start of the second Intifada in September
2000. Three other journalists were expelled from the city, bringing to
about 30 the number of journalists Israeli occupation troops have
either fired on, expelled or arrested this week, the group said.
Calling
the ban on journalists "a serious new attack on press
freedom" in a situation that has steadily worsened over the past
few months, RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard called Wednesday,
April 3, on the Israeli authorities to "cancel the ban
immediately".
"Allowing
the Israeli occupation of Ramallah to take place without media
witnesses is to foment rumors and disinformation," he said. RSF
is also concerned that the occupation army's media ban was extended
Wednesday to Bethlehem.
RSF
notes that Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights ratified by Israel guarantees the "freedom to
seek, receive and impart information."
RSF said the Israeli authorities "wanted to hide their military
operations from the world" and said the decision was "very
serious" at a time when war was flaring up in the Middle East.
"We
appeal to the European Union, the U.S. government and the entire
democratic world to persuade the Israeli authorities to ensure the
media can continue to report on what is happening in the Occupied
Territories," it said.
The
Ramallah bureau chief of the Qatari based TV station Al-Jazeera,
Walid el-Omary, told RSF by telephone that he would refuse to leave
the city.
Since
the beginning of the second Intifada, RSF has counted 52 cases of
journalists wounded by gunfire in the Occupied Territories and has
established that most of the shooting was done by the Israeli
occupation army.
It
has several times deplored the lack of any serious occupation army
enquiry into these shootings. Italian journalist Raffaele Ciriello was
killed March 13 in Ramallah by shots from an Israeli tank. RSF appeals
once again for the authorities to seriously investigate all the cases
of journalists killed or wounded since September 2000.
The
report counted cases of media-targeting during the last week.
On
March 29, Carlos Handal, an Israeli sniper killed a cameraman for the
Egyptian station Nile TV, on his way by car to the Lions Square
in Ramallah with a colleague.
Cameraman
Handal was seriously wounded as he was driving at dawn towards the
Lions Square in Ramallah. He was filming from the window of a mini-van
clearly marked "TV" and driven by his Palestinian colleague
Raed el-Helu, when he was hit in the throat by a bullet that came
through the windscreen.
Other
bullets also hit the vehicle. Handal was taken to the private Arab
Medical Center and put into intensive care. El-Helu confirmed the
shots came from an Israeli sniper.
On
March 30, a crew from the French TV station France 2 were fired
at by Israeli occupation troops when they wanted to pass a roadblock
between occupied East Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The
same day, Israeli occupation soldiers broke into the headquarters of
Palestinian TV and radio, forcing the Voice of Palestine to go
off-air. The occupation troops ordered four journalists to leave their
offices. The ministry of culture building, which housed a local radio
and TV station, was also occupied.
Israeli occupation soldiers also entered a building with offices of
several Palestinian and foreign media, including the British news
agency Reuters, and forced the journalists to leave. Four
Turkish journalists were detained for several hours at the Ramallah
press center by Israeli soldiers who searched them, confiscated their
passports and stopped them leaving the building.
On
March 31, the vehicle of two Swedish journalists, Bengt Norborg and
Rickard Collsiöö, special correspondents for the Swedish
public TV station SVT, were the target of warning shots by
Israeli troops at a roadblock on the outskirts of Ramallah.
An
American journalist, Anthony Shahid of the Boston Globe, was
hit in the shoulder by a bullet although he was wearing a bulletproof
vest with "Press" written on it. Shahid said he did not see
who fired at him, but said the area was surrounded by Israeli tanks
and soldiers at the time.
On
April 1, Israeli soldiers expelled an American CBS News
television team from Ramallah. As this was happening, a vehicle
containing six Western reporters and photographers was fired at by
Israeli troops near the city center. "I think the soldiers were
irritated," said one of the journalists, who refused to be named.
The
same day, a Palestinian journalist working for APTN (AP
Television News) was hit in the leg at Beit Jala while covering a
demonstration by pacifists.
On
April 2, in Bethlehem, Majadi Banura, a cameraman for the Qatari TV
station Al-Jazeera, was wounded in the head by a bullet while
in a balcony on the fifth floor of the Star Hotel, where about 20
journalists have been staying.
The
same day, Atta Iwisat, a photographer working for the Israeli daily Yediot
Aharonot and the Gamma news agency, were arrested by
Israeli occupation soldiers when they discovered he was not properly
accredited.
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