[E-rundbrief] Info 921 - Israel Censors News on Flotilla Raid.

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 921 - Mel Frykberg (IPS, Tel Aviv, IL): Israel 
Censors News on Deadly Flotilla Raid.

Bad Ischl, 3.6.2010

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Israel Censors News on Deadly Flotilla Raid

Mel Frykberg

TEL AVIV, Jun 3  (IPS)  - Attempts by media to interview some of  the
hundreds of Free Gaza (FG) members, who were being deported from Tel
Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, were thwarted by
Israeli authorities.

”No you will not be able to talk to them or interview them,” Shahar
Ariel, a deputy-spokesman from Israel's ministry of foreign affairs
(MFA) told IPS as TV crews and journalists jammed one of the airport's
sidewalks and filmed the dramatic departure.

Foreign media, and some Israeli journalists, have accused Israeli
authorities of censoring news and interfering with journalists trying to
interview the FG activists who were trying to deliver humanitarian aid
to the besieged Gaza Strip when they were attacked by Israeli commandos.

Israeli journalists from the left-leaning daily ‘Haaretz' have
complained of extreme difficulty in contacting the top brass in
political and military echelons willing to give interviews and comment
on the debacle.

Furthermore, the Israeli military had imposed a blackout on the names
and nationalities of the activists on board the FG flotilla and refused
to reveal in which hospitals the wounded were receiving treatment.

Some of the details leaked out, but journalists were forbidden from
talking to the wounded in the hospitals with Israeli Defence Force (IDF)
soldiers stationed in hospital corridors to enforce the blackout.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) reported that at least 60 of the
approximately 700 passengers on board the FG flotilla were journalists
and slammed the treatment of the media.

”We point out that the journalists were there to do their job, which
was to cover what happened. They should not be confused with the
activists,” RWB said.

Some of the reporters on board the boats were assaulted and their
equipment confiscated or destroyed. They were amongst the last to be
released by the Israeli authorities.

”We tried to race ahead of the commandos so that we could send out
pictures of the dead and wounded to the international media,” Huwaida
Arraf, FG's chairwoman, told IPS. ”But our satellite phones had stopped
functioning. The Israelis had scrambled the signals to prevent us
communicating with the outside world.''

”It was clear from the beginning that Israel was trying to control
the media coverage of the event to present its version of events to
the world.

”As soon as the commandos boarded they confiscated our mobiles,
recording and video devices and then started filming instead,”
Arraf told IPS.

One of the two Australian journalists on board, from ‘The Sydney Morning
Herald', Kate Geraghty, was tazered (with an electric baton). Paul
McGeough, her colleague, said that the naval commandos' pursuit of the
boats had felt like ”being hunted by hyenas at night.”

The two were denied consular access or legal representation. They had
originally wanted to fight their deportation order but their lawyer was
denied timely access.  When an Israeli court eventually agreed to an
urgent hearing it appeared too late as their plane was due to leave.

IPS asked Ariel why the Australian journalists had been denied
consular access and legal representation and why so many of the
activists had suddenly decided not to fight their deportation after
initially vowing to do so.

”We want them out of the country as soon as possible. This is a
normal situation, at this point in time, for them not to have
consular and legal access as they as they are still under
investigation,” Ariel told IPS.

The abuse and beatings of activists apparently happened on boats where
no resistance had been offered to the raiding commandos, unlike on the
‘Mavi Marmara' where some activists tried to fight back with crude
kitchen instruments, resulting in a still disputed number of them  dead.

The Israelis had claimed there were firearms on board, but withdrew the
allegations after being unable to offer proof.

Arraf disputed the accusations, saying that not only had the boats been
thoroughly checked by security at the various ports of departure but the
flotilla organisers had hired independent security experts to verify
that the boats were weapons-free.

In a separate incident on Wednesday IPS witnessed two very frightened
activists who had arrived at the airport on buses and had been forcibly
removed, being cuffed and frog-marched out of the departure terminal
towards a minivan.

According to an Israeli police spokesman they had acted in a
”provocative” manner.

When this correspondent took pictures of the event, he was verbally
abused and physically intimidated by one of the security police
escorting the FG detainees before his colleagues pulled him back.

The police then blocked the entrance of the minibus with their bodies
so that other reporters arriving on the scene were unable to take
further pictures.

Following the incident reporters were physically prevented by security
guards from entering the departure terminal.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, an Arab-Israeli member of Israel's Knesset
(parliament), who was on board one of the six flotilla boats, was
provided with bodyguards after another member tried to physically attack
her, forcing other legislators to intervene.

‘Haaretz' reported that Hanin Zoabi, the Arab-Israeli member, had during
a parliamentary discussion, described the Israel navy's bloody raid on a
Turkish-flagged ship as a ”pirate military operation”.

She had demanded that ministers explain why the soldiers had been
ordered to confiscate reporters' cameras and why the government had
refused to allow the media to publish pictures of the people who were
killed on board the ship.

(END/IPS/MM/WD/IP/CS/HD/PF/PI/AC/PG/RL/MF/RDR/10)

NNNN

with the compliments of

federico nier-fischer
fnf-comunicaciones

- editor ips-columnists service (german desk);
- consultant/project management intercultural communications;
- academic lectures on "Kulturindustrie", alternative media,
international news agencies,
the globalization of news and media, ...

fnf_comunicaciones at fastmail.fm

-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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