6 Feb 2014 | Palestine, Politics and Society
Israeli authorities have told a Palestinian TV station to stop broadcasting amid claims it was disrupting Israeli television broadcasting.
Sheraa TV, a local news station in the city of Tulkarem, had received several notices from the Israeli authorities to immediately stop broadcasting otherwise they would take action and force its closure.
The Israelis originally claimed that Sheraa TV’s broadcasting was disrupting communications, in particular those at Israel’s major international airport. However, after the TV station consulted with technicians from the Palestinian ministry of communications, who confirmed their devices were not causing any interference, the Israeli authorities then said the interference was affecting TV networks instead.
Mohamed Zeidan, Sheraa TV director general, told the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA): “We have taken the decision to stop broadcasting two days ago until we find a solution to this issue, because it is no stranger to the occupation authorities to raid media outlets and confiscate broadcasting equipment, which cost us a fortune.”
According to a report by MADA between 2008 and 2012 Israeli authorities targeted media outlets on a number of occasions.
The MADA has since called upon all countries and human rights organisations to pressure Israel into respecting freedom of expression and to commit to the international laws and agreements signed with the Palestinian National Authority.
13 Feb 2013 | Middle East and North Africa
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement.
A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting on the case, or even reporting of the order itself. “Prisoner X” became a byword in the Israeli media for yet one more of the kind of security-related stories that no-one quite knows the truth of, and probably never will.
Nothing more was heard until this week, when an Australian TV documentary claimed that the man in question was one Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old father-of-two and an Australian citizen who had moved to Israel a decade earlier.
Zygier, who called himself Ben Alon in Israel, was apparently held in the cell — built to hold Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — for a number of months before he was found hanged, and his body flown to Melbourne a week later. His father Geoffrey, a grandee of the Jewish community there, has refused to speak to the media regarding his son.
Military censorship and wide-reaching gag orders are a fact of life for Israeli journalists. But this gag order was absolute. Articles which appeared on a number of Israeli websites yesterday noting the Australian programme were soon removed.
Even more extraordinary was the meeting called that afternoon by the Prime Minister’s office convening the so-called “Editors’ Committee”, a grouping set up in the early years of the state through which senior media figures could be briefed on secret information if they agreed to not publish it.
Historically this was a sort of gentleman’s agreement between the hacks and the establishment, who in the nascent days of Israel were understood to be more or less on the same side. Now, the annual meeting between the PM and the Editors’ Committee has become largely a matter of show, open to the scrutiny of other journalists. Self-censorship is managed more obliquely.
The Prisoner X situation was so extraordinary that a number of MKs used parliamentary privilege yesterday to ask the outgoing Justice Minister, Yaakov Ne’eman about the Australian reports. Zahava Gal-On, head of the left-wing Meretz faction pouring scorn on the implied complicity of the Israeli media.
“I want to hear your stance on the fact that journalists volunteer to censor information at the government’s request,” she said. “Is it proper that the Prime Minister’s Office invited the Editors’ Committee to prevent news from being publicised? Today, we hear that in a country that claims to be a civilized democracy, journalists cooperate with the government, and that anonymous prisoners, who no one knew existed, commit suicide.”
The gag order has now been softened, perhaps due to the MKs’ questions, and Israeli media are now reporting on the Australian story. But it’s the press rather than politicians who should be charged with exposing this kind of event.
There is an argument to be made that there is a need for some level of censorship to protect national security. But the censors need to choose their battles.
It’s stupid and self-destructive to try and suppress a story after it appears on a foreign media outlet. The suppression will inevitably serves to draw additional attention to the story.
The danger is that security becomes its own justification for censorship with a creeping reach.
Daniella Peled is editor at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting and writes widely on the Middle East
13 Feb 2013 | Middle East and North Africa
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement.
A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting on the case, or even reporting of the order itself. “Prisoner X” became a byword in the Israeli media for yet one more of the kind of security-related stories that no-one quite knows the truth of, and probably never will.
Nothing more was heard until this week, when an Australian TV documentary claimed that the man in question was one Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old father-of-two and an Australian citizen who had moved to Israel a decade earlier.
Zygier, who called himself Ben Alon in Israel, was apparently held in the cell — built to hold Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — for a number of months before he was found hanged, and his body flown to Melbourne a week later. His father Geoffrey, a grandee of the Jewish community there, has refused to speak to the media regarding his son.
Military censorship and wide-reaching gag orders are a fact of life for Israeli journalists. But this gag order was absolute. Articles which appeared on a number of Israeli websites yesterday noting the Australian programme were soon removed.
Even more extraordinary was the meeting called that afternoon by the Prime Minister’s office convening the so-called “Editors’ Committee”, a grouping set up in the early years of the state through which senior media figures could be briefed on secret information if they agreed to not publish it.
Historically this was a sort of gentleman’s agreement between the hacks and the establishment, who in the nascent days of Israel were understood to be more or less on the same side. Now, the annual meeting between the PM and the Editors’ Committee has become largely a matter of show, open to the scrutiny of other journalists. Self-censorship is managed more obliquely.
The Prisoner X situation was so extraordinary that a number of MKs used parliamentary privilege yesterday to ask the outgoing Justice Minister, Yaakov Ne’eman about the Australian reports. Zahava Gal-On, head of the left-wing Meretz faction pouring scorn on the implied complicity of the Israeli media.
“I want to hear your stance on the fact that journalists volunteer to censor information at the government’s request,” she said. “Is it proper that the Prime Minister’s Office invited the Editors’ Committee to prevent news from being publicised? Today, we hear that in a country that claims to be a civilized democracy, journalists cooperate with the government, and that anonymous prisoners, who no one knew existed, commit suicide.”
The gag order has now been softened, perhaps due to the MKs’ questions, and Israeli media are now reporting on the Australian story. But it’s the press rather than politicians who should be charged with exposing this kind of event.
There is an argument to be made that there is a need for some level of censorship to protect national security. But the censors need to choose their battles.
It’s stupid and self-destructive to try and suppress a story after it appears on a foreign media outlet. The suppression will inevitably serves to draw additional attention to the story.
The danger is that security becomes its own justification for censorship with a creeping reach.
Daniella Peled is editor at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting and writes widely on the Middle East
20 Jun 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A UN human rights expert has slammed the government of Israel, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza for unduly limiting free speech. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, special rapporteur on free expression Frank La Rue said that intimidation, censorship and restrictive laws were having a chilling effect on the work of journalists and activists. La Rue also presented a report to the council, urging Palestinians and and Israel to uphold standards on freedom of speech.
