Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 20095, the IDF bombed the offices of the Hamas-affiliated Al-Risala newsweekly, accordingto regional news agencies. On January 9, the IDF hit the rooftop of GazaCity’s Al-Johara Tower, which housed more than 20 international news organizations.Al-Jazeera reported that at least one journalist was injured while filing areport from the roof.On January 15, the IDF fired at least one missile at a Gaza City building,Al-Shuruq Tower, which housed more than a dozen international news and productioncompanies, including Reuters, Fox News, and the Dubai-based televisionstation Al-Arabiya. Two journalists working for Abu Dhabi TV were hospitalizedwith head and torso injuries. The blast also destroyed power generators andforced staff to evacuate the building. Multiple news organizations reported thatthey had provided the Israeli military with coordinates for their offices. Reutersalso noted that the Israeli military had given the news agency numerous assurancesthat it would not become a target. An Israeli military spokesman told Reutersthat Hamas militants had taken over a media office in the area. CPJ researchfound the IDF accusations of a militant takeover vague and uncorroborated bywitnesses. Reuters publicly disputed the claim.In April, CPJ wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging theIsraeli government to examine the press restrictions and military strikes on mediafacilities that had occurred during the Israeli offensive in Gaza and to bring officialpolicies and practices in line with international standards. In particular, CPJ urgedIsraeli authorities not to impose blanket media restrictions in the future, to conductimmediate and thorough investigations into the apparent targeting of news mediafacilities during the conflict, and to make the findings public.In June, months after the Gaza conflict had ended, an Israeli court sentencedtwo television journalists to two months in jail on charges of breaching the militarycensorship law during the offensive. Khader Shaheen, a correspondent for theIranian satellite television news station Al-Alam, and his producer, MuhammadSarhan, remained free on appeal, according to their lawyers. They had been arrestedin January and held for 10 days on charges that they reported Israeli militarymovements the previous month. The military censorship law enables authoritiesto determine what material may not be published; local and foreign journalists arebound by this law as a condition of operating in Israel or the Occupied PalestinianTerritory. CPJ research indicated that Shaheen and Sarhan had reported the samenews as many other journalists. CPJ protested the Israeli court ruling against Shaheenand Sarhan and called on the courts to overturn their sentence.In the Palestinian territories, the rift between Fatah, once the main party ofthe Palestinian national movement, and the Islamist faction Hamas widened aftera short-lived coalition fell apart in June 2007. Hamas consolidated control of theGaza Strip while the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas re-middle east and north africa:israel and the occupied palestinian territorytained Fatah rule in the West Bank. Journalists operating in the Palestinian territorieswere subject to harassment and censorship by Hamas officials in Gaza and byPalestinian Authority officials in the West Bank. Each party maintained a ban onthe distribution of publications they perceived as partisan, and they detained numerousjournalists, generally for short periods, with a few held for days at a time.In late January, the Palestinian Authority detained two journalists workingfor the London-based Al-Quds television station in the West Bank. Nablus correspondentSamer Khuaira was arrested by the authority’s Preventive SecurityService and accused of having bias toward Hamas, which he denied. Khuairatold CPJ he spent a week in solitary confinement in Al-Junaid Prison in Nablusbefore he was transferred to a general holding cell. He was released in earlyMarch. Colleague Ahmad Bekawi, a correspondent in Jenin, was arrested afterbeing called to the offices of Military Intelligence, and was held at the same prisonuntil mid-April. Also in late January, Issam al-Rimawi, a cameraman with thePalestinian Authority-aligned Palestinian News Agency, was picked up by securityforces, held at Beitunia Prison near Ramallah, and released on February 10.CPJ criticized the detentions and called on the Palestinian Authority to eithercharge or release the journalists.In July, the Palestinian Authority instructed Al-Jazeera to cease operating inthe West Bank for four days after the satellite channel aired controversial statementsby Faruq al-Qadumi, a Fatah party leader, about Abbas. Al-Qadumi accusedAbbas of being involved with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharonin a plot to assassinate Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders in 2004. Accordingto Al-Jazeera’s Web site, the Palestinian Information Ministry describedthe allegations as untrue and accused Al-Jazeera of “devoting significant segmentsof its broadcasts to incitement against the Palestinian Liberation Organizationand the Palestinian Authority.” Al-Jazeera has about 30 correspondents, cameraoperators, fixers, and technicians operating in the West Bank.Journalists working in the Palestinian territories also faced harassment fromIsraeli authorities. In October, Israeli security forces assaulted a journalist workingfor the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) in east Hebron, according to thePalestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, or MADA. Correspondentand photographer Abdel-Hafiz Hashlamoun said Israeli soldiers beathim with a gun and kicked him while he was filming Israeli soldiers alleged tohave destroyed irrigation pipes belonging to Palestinian farmers, MADA reported.In a separate case in October, EPA photographer Najeh Hashlamoun saidIsraeli Civilian Administration workers had struck him in the face with his owncamera, MADA reported. In June, Israeli soldiers assaulted five photojournalistsworking for international media and prevented them from covering a gatheringof Palestinian and Israeli activists protesting the confiscation of farmers’ land, ac-224225