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| Israel-Palestine |
| UK |
| 2004-08-20 |
| Friday, 20 August, 2004, 18:21 GMT 19:21 UK UK foreign secretary Jack Straw is being urged to take action over a UK journalist detained in Israel. Ewa Jasiewicz, 26, was prevented from entering Israel at an airport in Tel Aviv last week and was placed in a detention centre when she appealed. The Israelis say she is a political activist whose journalism is biased. The editor of Ms Jasiewicz's magazine Red Pepper has called on Mr Straw to protest in the strongest terms to the Israeli government. On Friday the Israeli authorities offered to free her on bail, saying that they had no case to hold her. A friend paid the 30,000 Israeli shekels or £3,600 price. She was to be freed on condition she did not enter the occupied territories. Once released Ms Jasiewicz was to appeal these conditions as she was due to go and report on the conditions under which the Palestinian people are living in the occupied territories. But then the Israeli state appealed against the court's decision to free her and her case is to be heard by the Israeli Supreme Court next week. Meanwhile Ms Jasiewicz remains in detention. Her colleagues at Red Pepper suspect Ms Jasiewicz has been singled out because she witnessed and reported on the killing of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Baha al-Bahesh, by the Israeli Defence Force soldier in Nablus. Her eyewitness account of the death received considerable press coverage. At the time she was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian led organisation which stages protests against the Israeli occupation. Red Pepper Editor Hilary Wainwright said: "I call on foreign secretary Jack Straw to make the strongest protest to the Israeli government over this outrageous act and to do everything he can to ensure that Ewa is able to do her job and report from Israel and Palestine." "Ewa has been detained as an act of censorship because the authorities do not want the world to hear what she has to say because she has previously been a witness to crimes committed by the Israeli Defence Force." I'd wager Ewa was detained due to her biased portrayal of Baha al-Bahesh's activities. Facilitating the information gathering of organizations like GIPP enables them to promote continued European funding of the Palestinian terror organizations. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is also urging the British government to intervene. "Ewa Jasiewicz is a bona fide 'Press freedom' A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman confirmed Ms Jasiewicz was in an Israeli detention centre. "We are giving her consular assistance which means ensuring she has legal representation and that she is being treated appropriately." He said that Mr Straw had not taken any action on her case. He added that issues of press freedom were taken up with various countries but at differing levels of seniority. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister told BBC News Online the country had a right to determine who entered it. "A country has a legitimate right to question the intentions of an individual on entering a country. "The authorities will behave in accordance with the decision of the court," the spokesman added. Israel's concern about Ms Jasiewicz related to her links to the International Solidarity Movement, he told BBC News Online. It should be noted that the International Solidarity Movement enthusiastically endorses terrorism. Israel's trepidations with respect to Ewa Jasiewicz would seem to be rather well founded. It was impossible to find any unbiased reporting concerning the circumstances surrounding Baha al-Bahesh's shooting. Below is reportage from a pro-Palestinian site regarding the incident. The teenager [Baha al-Bahesh], who is from the northern part of Nablus, was a well-known volunteer with international and Palestinian organizations working in the Nablus region, and acted as an informal guide for international delegates. Al-Bahesh was accompanying a four-person delegation of British, German and Polish representatives of GIPP (Grassroots International Protection for Palestinians) at noon yesterday to observe Israeli soldiers enforcing the curfew, as it had been reported to the delegation that shots were fired at a group of schoolchildren. From the GIPP web page: The repression of the second Intifada has become a fierce, one sided war lead by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, accompanied with serious violations of international humanitarian rights: more than 1000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 20,000 have been injured. Moreover, hundreds of buildings and homes have been demolished, olive and fruit trees uprooted, agricultural lands bulldozed, and strict closures and curfews affect millions of Palestinians on a daily basis. It's pretty obvious al-Bahesh was assisting organizations that seek to portray the Palestinians as victims instead of the bloodthirsty killers they actually are. Small wonder that the IDF punched his ticket. Groups like GIPP are responsible for fostering European sympathy and their continued funding of |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #5 Zenster, the question is, would they want to? Well, maybe, if we could teach her to bleat like a goat. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-20 10:25:22 PM |
| #4 Zenster, the question is, would they want to? |
| Posted by: Bryan 2004-08-20 9:55:18 PM |
| #3 I'll give a bucket full of warm spit once these anti-civilization types quit smearing my own country in the press in Europe and particulary in the U.K. This woman's plight is nothing to me. Any nation has the right to control who enters it's borders. If she doesn't like it go via Egypt next time. Quit smearing the US with lies and half truths you anarco-facist puke swillers. |
| Posted by: FlameBait93268 2004-08-20 9:53:14 PM |
| #2 Bryan, the NUJ actually got it somewhat right despite appearances. An entire country could enter Ms Jasiewicz (individually, in multiples or all at once) and I doubt it would overly concern me. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-20 9:37:48 PM |
| #1 "It is not acceptable that a democratic country should be refused entry to a journalist because they find her work objectionable." The democratic country was trying to enter the journalist? The NUJ evidently got so excited by this setback to terrorist sympathisers that they forgot how to string a sentence together. A Swedish friend of mine recently sat in on a ISM meeting in that Moslem-besieged country. She said they are the most vomit-inducing organisation she's encountered in ages. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2004-08-20 9:00:46 PM |