Ramallah- 21 August 2011: Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) this morning arrested Al-Aqsa TV cameraman Osaid Amarneh after raiding his home in Deheisha refugee camp, Bethlehem.
Amarneh’s father Abdelmajed Amarneh said that a unit of Israeli solidiers raided their building at 3:00 am and shot his cousin Baker Badaren, 27, in the leg. Amarneh added: “after that, they searched our house and detained us in different rooms and asked about Osaid, then they arrested him". Badaren was taken to Haddasah hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.
Osaid Amarneh is now the fourth journalist to be arrested and held in captivity by Israeli occupation authorities this year, following the arrests of Walid Khaled on the 8th of May- sentenced to 6 months administrative detention, Al-Quds TV program coordinator in West Bank Nawaf Al-Amer in Nablus on the 28th of June; and Al-Jazeera Afghanistan Bureau Chief Samer Allawy at the Allenby border crossing on the 9th of August following his holiday visiting family in Sabstaya -Nablus.
The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) strongly condemns the arrest of Osaid Amarneh and demands his immediate release from Israeli custody. MADA additionally calls upon the international community to exercise real and immediate pressure on Israeli authorities to end their arrest of journalists which contradict international laws and to release the arrested journalists.
