The BBC ignores the beating of Palestinian journalist they interviewed only days before
By Mary Rizzo • Jun 30th, 2008 at 14:01 • Category: Action Alert, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, PalestineLETTERS TO THE BBC BY DAVID HALPIN
To BBC News online
Dear Olivia,
My first message to you was on 06/28/2008 at 08:33 PM.
I see no report of the assault on this journalist on the BBC web site. Assuming you are on holiday, I am copying this to senior colleagues. To this lay person, there would appear to be several reasons to report that which Mohammed Omer has and is suffering.
1. The BBC were sufficiently interested to interview him on BBC World Service just before he left for France. I provided the contact number for that to happen.
2. It is true is it not that an unprecedented number of journalists have been killed in Iraq - at least 250? 9 have been killed in Gaza. The alleged barbaric treatment of this young journalist should be reported; the louder the silence, the greater the state impunity.
3. If this was Alan Johnston and not a Palestinian (albeit of great talent), the story would have been number one.
4. I ask what would have been reported by yourselves if the boot which trod on his throat had lead to his death. It has been a near thing and I have not had a report today. Would his dying from this assault by agents of Israel have been reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation?
5. His courage is exceptional - and our world needs that more than ever.
His own web site http://www.rafahtoday.org/
I ask that you report it. He was/is in the European hospital near Khan Younis. Its number is Tel 00970 - 8- 2054495
Yours sincerely David Halpin FRCS
Dear Olivia,
A more explicit report http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43005 and an up to date report from a Swedish journalist who has taken Mo's writing and photos for these last 5 years. Lotta Schullerquist spoke with him in the European hospital. He is on a 'drip' because he cannot swallow and his speech is faint. It is likely that the boot was 'placed' across his larynx as he lay supine. A major 'broadsheet' will carry the details tomorrow. They were celebrating the birth of a 'democracy' 60 years ago in Trafagar Square I am told.
For truth David
BBC Online
Dear Olivia,
You were aware of this prize giving 14 days ago. I was honoured to attend. We were distressed when we learned that a tired but happy Mo had been stopped from entering Palestine. I have returned from another enjoyable Palestinian exercise last night in London to learn of this assault on an unarmed young man, who with his family has already suffered greatly under the Israelis. A brother was shot dead, his mother was shot in the leg and the family home was demolished in Rafah in 2004.
I thought you would wish to report this. I have his number for corroboration but I imagine he will not to hear from the west at present.
With best wishes David
Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective. Her personal blog is Peacepalestine.
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Please circulate and sign the following petition which will be sent to Secretary Rice in protest of the brutal treatment Mohammed received and Israel's curtailment of journalist's freedom of movement-as well as those who have been killed by the IOF.
Remember back to Winter 2006 when Mohammed won the Young America's Voice Award and Israel was preventing him from leaving to come to the US to receive it. He wrote to Rice at the time to intervene on his behalf with Israel and the State Department DID intervene. (Mohammed's letter found to her here http://www.washington-report.org/archives/December_2006/0612082.html)
His travel to Europe to receive the Martha Gellhorn prize was coordinated by Washington Report for whom he is their Gaza correspondent.
They have done this petition; Link to it to sign and circulate please.
http://mediausa.net/wrmea/petition/
Petition to End Israel’s Restrictions on Freedom of Movement and the Press
To: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
We, the undersigned, condemn Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Gaza correspondent and author of the magazine’s regular feature, “Gaza on the Ground.” The 24-year-old Palestinian journalist was brutally assaulted by Israeli Shin Bet security officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing on his way home to Gaza on June 26. He had just received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which he shared with independent American journalist Dahr Jamail. Omer’s award citation reads, “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” (see John Pilger’s July 2 article, “From Triumph to Torture,” in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/02/israelandthepalestinians.civilliberties)
This is not an isolated incident, Pilger points out, but part of a terrible pattern. Israel gives its border guards and Shin Bet agents free rein to regularly harass Palestinians (as well as Palestinian Americans and American peace activists and academics) traveling to and from the occupied territories. Israel randomly abuses, searches, interrogates and humiliates travelers of every age—men and women—and frequently refuses to let them pass through Israeli-controlled borders to their homes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. We just don’t hear their voices.
Israel simply doesn’t want Palestinian voices to be heard abroad. Palestinians are routinely prevented from accepting invitations to speak in Europe or North America. Students with scholarships to study overseas are not permitted to leave. Israel is now preventing Palestinians from returning home, even for a visit, once they have left to work or study abroad. (Israel recently revoked Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison’s travel documents, and will not renew her Jerusalem ID card. She is not allowed to return home to visit her father and mother, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.)
We, the undersigned, also urge the Israeli government to end its efforts to censor international reports from the occupied territories. The government prefers stories to be filed from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, where they are subject to censorship, and allows few, if any, international journalists to enter the West Bank and Gaza. Israel censors, harasses and even kills Palestinian journalists who are trying to report on conditions in the occupied territories.
We call on the Israeli government to protect journalists who are trying to work in the occupied territories. At least eight journalists have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since 2001, seven of them in attacks by Israel Defense Forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists research.*
We call on the Israeli government to end its harassment of travelers and journalists. When Israel targets journalists it infringes on a basic pillar of democracy, freedom of the press. Human beings, even those ruled for decades by an occupying power, have the right to leave home and return safely, without interference, and the right to freedom of speech.
Sincerely,
*These include:
* Fadel Shana, a Reuters cameraman, was killed, and soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed was wounded, on April 16, 2008 in the Gaza Strip after they stopped their car, bearing the markings “TV” and “Press,” to film Israeli military forces several hundred meters away. Shana was filming an Israeli tank when it fired on the men.
* Imad Ghanem, a cameraman for the Hamas-affiliated satellite channel Al-Aqsa, was killed by shells fired from Israeli tanks in July 2007 in the Gaza Strip as he was filming paramedics transferring victims of an Israeli tank attack.
* Mohamed Abu Halima, a student correspondent for university-affiliated Al-Najah radio station, was killed on March 22, 2004 while reporting on Israeli troop activity at the entrance to the Balata refugee camp, outside the West Bank city of Nablus.
* Nazih Darwazeh a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, was killed by Israeli forces in Nablus on April 19, 2003 while filming clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli troops. Darwazeh was wearing a fluorescent jacket marked “Press,” and he and other journalists shouted loudly to Israeli troops in both English and Hebrew indicating that they were with the media before the shooting.
* James Miller, a British free-lance cameraman and award-winning documentary filmmaker, was fatally shot in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on May 2, 2003. His producer Saira Shah, and translator Abdul Rahman Abdullah attempted to identify themselves to the Israeli troops in the area while they were leaving. The journalists were wearing jackets and helmets marked “TV,” and Abdullah was waving a white flag while Miller used a flashlight to illuminate the flag.
Please circulate and sign this petition on Mohammed's behalf and other Palestinian journalists. It has been issued by Washington Report on Middle East Affairs for whom he is their Gaza correspondent (and who coordinated his travel on this recent European trip to receive the Martha Gellhorn prize)
http://mediausa.net/wrmea/petition/
Yesterday I spoke to Barbara Whitaker at AP headquarters in New York. Interestingly, she said to me on the phone "I don't know if we received this story already and have taken a pass". I sent her all links and phone numbers to contact to verify this story and PUBLISH. She wrote me back saying it had been sent to the international desk, thank you.
It was sent to Rory Suchet, international desk at CNN Los Angeles whom I spoke with on the phone Saturday. No response since yesterday.
Yesterday I spoke to Amrita at the Real News Canada and forwarded all info an contacts to her. I doubt very much they will ignore the story.
I have PROOF these news agencies received this information which was more than sufficient to investigate and publish. If they do NOT, then it is OBVIOUS they have ignored it.
On a side note, a little over a week ago, a very well known and respected activist died of a heart attack suddenly here in Los Angeles. His name was Don White. He was a former school teacher who worked for years as an activist for Latin Americans. He ALSO worked with Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid here in LA as a TIRELESS advocate for the Palestinian people. At first the LA Times took a pass on doing an obit on him altogether. Many of us wrote letters to the LA Times telling them this was a mistake on their part.
We gave them MUCH information on his work on behalf of Palestine. Two days ago the LAT published an obit, OMITTING any reference to his work on behalf of the Palestinian people. This is an OUTRAGE to all who knew him in that particular capacity, and is proof POSITIVE of the slant of the LA Times in what they choose to print. Here is his obit, but know that he ALSO was totally dedicated to the Palestinian people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-white2-2008jul02,0,3587446.story
Enough is ENOUGH. This is just beyond censorship, this in complete NEGLECT on the part of the MSM here in the United States, and I for one am SICK OF IT!
As of today, the world's largest and most influential news wire service — The Associated Press — has not published even one report on Mohammed's ordeal. We've called and emailed them, and Robin (Under the Holly Tree) sent them the necessary contact information; still, there's nothing. Per the Nuremberg Trials (Principles), media entities are complicit in crimes against humanity when they dehumanize and blackball groups of people based on ethnicity or religion, resulting in unlawful public persecution of said groups. The evidence is decades-long and piling up by the hour. When was the last time AP or Reuters matter-of-factly told us the occupation of the Territiories and Jerusalem is illegal according to the U.N. and international law? Never! Or that dozens of the Palestinians prisoners requested in the Hamas-Israel swap are women and children illegally held w/o charges? Never! (AP refers to all of them as "militants.") Or that the shakedown of Iran is a massive violation of the 1981 Algiers Accords? Never! One fine day, these media monstrosities will pay for their crimes.
Mohammed was interviewed by Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now" today (7/7/08). His ghastly ordeal was a flagrant display of Zionist control of the medias and governments world-wide.
[...] in the Israeli press, including HaAretz, which claims to be at the left of the other newspapers. (Letter to the BBC) Is it just to be accepted that Mohammed was tortured and beaten simply because he is a [...]
[...] printed one word about the incident. WHY???? Also silent has been newspapers that Mohammed Omer has written for in the past. [...]