INDEPTH: MIDDLE EAST
Intimidating Palestinian journalists
CBC News Online | May 14, 2004
By Adrienne Arsenault | From Sunday Report May 9, 2004
The Mideast is a part of the world where violence occurs almost daily, frequent, furious, too often with deadly consequences. Among a growing list of victims: Palestinian journalists. But the intimidation they face is coming from an unlikely corner. They say it is coming from other Palestinians.
A Palestinian journalist was wounded this week, shot, he says, by Israeli soldiers.
In a notoriously dangerous conflict to cover, international watchdog groups say it is Palestinian journalists most at risk. They are the ones most often harassed, denied access by Israeli forces, or caught in the crossfire.
They also face other rarely discussed dangers, dangers that have nothing to do with Israel. Jamal Arori's wounds are fresh. "I was attacked by a group of masked men," he says, "they beat me with sticks. It was sudden, with no explanation." It will be a while before this photographer can take pictures again, which was, perhaps, the point.
His name is now added to the list of Palestinians intimidated by other Palestinians. Since September, at least half a dozen Palestinian journalists have been beaten or their offices trashed. One was shot and killed. All of this violence was inflicted by masked, unidentified gunmen. The clear suggestion from many Palestinian journalists is that someone powerful here is trying to shut them up.
Some of the targeted journalists told us just before the attacks they had done stories touching the raw nerves of internal Palestinian affairs, always a precarious endeavour. Last fall after a reporter with al-Arabiya filed items on the crisis between Yasser Arafat and the first Palestinian prime minister, she started getting calls.
"People saying they don't like the coverage that we are doing for the crisis, for the disagreement between Arafat and Abu Mazan and they are worried it might cause me troubles," reporter Hadil Wahdan says.
Days later, five men with rifles burst into the office and destroyed all they could. No one has been charged with these attacks and Palestinian journalists do their best to protest and insist they won't be silenced.
They're angry the Palestinian Authority seems to be doing nothing to protect them.
"The Palestinian Authority is a typical Arab regime," says human rights activist Bassem Eid. "The Palestinian Authority officials developed and grew up in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon or Sudan…these people have the same mentality that the Palestinian leader should continue fighting against the freedom of expression."
Always there is the question of just how much the Palestinian Authority knows about who's behind the attacks.
Someone suggests that this intimidation is coming directly from the Palestinian authority.
"No, that's not true. Let us wait to see the results of the investigation," says Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat. "I don't think we in the Palestinian Authority want to intimidate anybody. If some people who belong to the Palestinian Authority are exercising in a corrupt manner their influence, that doesn't mean it is the Palestinian Authority."
Now the Palestinian Authority is offering soothing words and great promises to the journalists, little comfort to professionals who say it is getting harder to stay out of harm's way.
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