IDF Accused Of Attacking Journalists

Taken from the Jerusalem Post, 12.10.06

The Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association on Thursday accused the IDF of "unprovoked violence against journalists" after two Palestinian journalists were beaten up and one of them detained in the West Bank.

"In both cases there is no evidence that either colleague was doing anything other than pursuing their journalistic duties," the FPA said in a statement.

Emad Borat, a freelance cameraman for Reuters news agency and other groups, has remained in custody since he was detained while filming soldiers entering the Palestinian village of Bilin on Oct. 6, said Shai Carmeli-Pollak, a film maker.

Bilin, located near the boundary with Israel, is the scene of weekly protests against the West Bank security barrier. Pollak said Borat was beaten up inside a military jeep after his detention and needed six stitches for a gash on his face.

A military judge has ordered Borat to be released, but he remains in custody while prosecutors appeal the order. The IDF has accused Borat of throwing stones at border police while filming, Pollak said.

Borat was the main photographer for Pollak's documentary, "Bilin My Love," which won best documentary at the recent Jerusalem Film Festival.

The FPA complaint also cited the case of Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a photographer for Agence France Presse. Ashtiyeh, 38, said an Israeli soldier chased and kicked him after he tried to take photographs of an Israeli checkpoint next to the West Bank city of Nablus.

The FPA, which represents foreign journalists in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said both cases raised "serious concerns about the treatment of journalists by members of the Israeli armed services."

The IDF did not return calls seeking comment.
----------------------------------------------------

Journalists have been in the news lately...

(1) An ITN journalist was unlawfully killed by American soldiers in southern Iraq, an inquest has found. The troops shot 50-year-old Terry Lloyd in the head while he was in a makeshift ambulance, having already been hurt in crossfire, the coroner said.

Mr Lloyd's interpreter was also killed and his cameraman is missing believed dead following the incident, which took place near Basra in March 2003.

Mr Lloyd's Lebanese interpreter, Hussein Osman, was also killed and French cameraman Fred Nerac is still officially classed as missing, presumed dead. Belgian cameraman Daniel Demoustier was the ITN crew's only survivor. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said Mr Lloyd's killing was a "war crime" and this was echoed by Mr Lloyd's widow, Lyn.

(2) There was also Anna Politkovskaya, famed for her unsparing coverage of abuses against civilians in Chechnya, found dead last Saturday in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building.

(3) At least 34 people were killed Thursday in attacks in Iraq, including 11 in an assault on a new Sunni-Arab television station in Baghdad, while authorities found the mutilated bodies of more likely victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital.

The raid on the southeastern Baghdad offices of Iraq's Shaabiya satellite station came at around 7 a.m. An unknown number of gunmen pulled up at the station in seven cars, stormed quickly into the offices and opened fire, then fled, station executive director Hassan Kamil told Associated Press Television News.

Since April 2003, the Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that at least 80 journalists and 22 media support workers have died in the Iraq conflict - the overwhelming majority killed by members of Iraqi insurgent groups.

(4) There was also the case in the US where a jury in Florida awarded a woman $11.3m (£6m) in costs and damages after a former acquaintance accused her of being a crook, a con artist and a fraudster on an internet talkboard and lastly it was revealed that

(5) David Blunkett, the UK's former home secretary, has said that during the 2003 invasion of Iraq he suggested to Tony Blair that Britain's military should bomb Aljazeera's television transmitter in Baghdad.

The US has previously accused Aljazeera of aiding its enemies. Two weeks after Blunkett pressed the prime minister to attack al-Jazeera, the American military bombed the station's Baghdad offices, killing journalist Tareq Ayoub.

Blunkett however said that although the British government considered targeting Aljazeera's transmission equipment, it considered that journalists were not a legitimate target.

"I think there's a big difference between taking out the transmission and taking out journalists - even if you don't agree with them," he said.

"I don't know whether it was a mistake or not, but I wouldn't call it legitimacy," he added, referring to the US bombing.