Ramallah – 24th March 2014: On Saturday 22nd March 2014, the Israeli Occupation Forces IOF detained 6 Palestinian journalists in different locations in the West Bank North near Nablus and South near Bethlehem, while exercising their profession. They are: Dubai TV correspondent Mohamed Assayed, Associated Press cameraman Mohamed Hassan and the producer Rami Abdu, French Agency photographer Mousa Alshaer, Alquds Dot Com photographer Abd-Alrahman Younis, and an American photographer “name unknown”.
Mohamed Assayed reported to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) on Sunday 23rd March 2014, that he went with his colleagues Mohamed Hassan and Rami Abdu to prepare a report near Zatarra checkpoint near Nablus, during which they were approached by border soldiers who asked them to stop filming and to hand over their identification cards. After 45 minutes, they were asked to head to the control tower at the checkpoint and park their car there. Assayaed added: “At that time we realized that they want to detain us for a long time, so we called the Associated Press Office, we were released after 2 hours and 15 minutes”. Assayaed added: “It's not the first time that we are exposed to the violations by the occupation, we have faced the most difficult and the most serious violations, but we will continue to deliver our message and our voice to the world”.
Mousa Alshaer reported to MADA that he went over yesterday to cover the clashes erupted in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, but the occupation forces that were heavily present in the area, prevented him and his colleague Abd-Alrahman Younis from covering, as well as an American photographer. Alshaer Added: “We were standing away from clashes and near the Occupation army, but they asked us to go to the shooting area, but we refused and we told them that it’s a dangerous area. Their reaction was to confiscate our personal identification cards and they kept us for about an hour and a half”.
There is a rising tensions in the West Bank recently, the occupation forces have stepped up its targeting of journalists in the past week, where they prevented Ma’an TV cameraman Jalal Hamied, and the photographers Younis and Alshaer last Tuesday 18th March 2014, from covering a military Jeep rollover in Tekoa area near Beit Sahour city. Hamied was also attacked by Israeli soldiers, and he reported to MADA: “the IOF soldiers prevented my colleagues and me from covering and I was at front, so a soldier grabbed me from the neck violently and pushed me about 6 meters to the back”.
On Monday 17th March 2014, the IOF soldiers detained Palestine Today TV correspondent Fida Nasser for very long hours after she was attacked by Israeli settlers who beat her and sprayed her with red wine. Nasser reported to MADA that she was preparing a report about the effects on Palestinian citizens by Jewish holidays in the city of Hebron, near the entrance of Martyrs Street, after she was attacked by the settlers; a female settlers called the soldiers and accused Fida of pushing and attacking her. Nasser added: “the soldiers detained me until the police arrived, and they forced me to accompany them to the police station after I refused to do so voluntarily, when I entered the interrogation room, I was charged with assaulting a female settlers who was present also to testify, and even though I denied the charges, they tried to prove it with all means. They photographed me and took my fingerprints, and then they released me after I signed a paper stating that I should attend to the station at any time I am called”. The detention process lasted from 11 am until 4:15pm.
MADA condemns all Occupation violation against journalists, and we ask the International community to take immediate action to stop the violations that endanger the lives of journalists and hamper their work, which is a blatant violation of freedom of expression guaranteed in international conventions.
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