Border police beat Agence France-Presse photographer

Reporters Without Borders protested against the beating by Israeli frontier guards of a Palestinian photographer, Jaafar Achtiye, working for the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) near the West Bank town of Nablus today. "Using the excuse of the fight against Palestinian terrorism, the Israeli authorities can freely threaten and physically attack journalists who live and work in the Occupied Territories," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "We demand that this incident, like others, be investigated and that those responsible be punished for violating press freedom. The Israeli army's promise to curb the violent behaviour of some of its troops against journalists has unfortunately very rarely been kept," he said. Achtiye was beaten by two Israeli border policemen when he arrived at the crossing point between Nablus and the town of Salim, even though they knew he was a journalist. They threatened to seize his camera but changed their mind when they saw no pictures had been taken. Before they let him go, they threatened to kill him if he ever returned. Reporters Without Borders notes that obstruction of the media covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached alarming proportions this year. - Three journalists have been killed in the Occupied Territories, including Raffaele Ciriello, a reporter for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, in Ramallah on 13 March. These deaths were caused by excessive use of force by the Israeli army, which has not investigated the incidents despite its promises to do so. - Eight journalists, including two French and an American, have been wounded by gunfire while reporting in Palestinian towns occupied by the Israeli army. In most cases, they were clearly identifiable as journalists and were no danger to the soldiers. They were wounded by warning or intimidatory shots not intended to kill them but sometimes seriously wounding them. - A dozen Palestinian journalists have been imprisoned without trial or sentence, using the device of "administrative detention," for periods of between one and eight months. Two of them, Khalid Ali Mohammed Zwawi and Nizar Ramadan, are still being held, respectively since April and June, though Israeli officials have given no indication of why. - Dozens of journalists in the Occupied Territories have been threatened, physically attacked, targeted at army checkpoints or had their equipment seized. Those responsible for these violations of press freedom are apparently rarely punished and a feeling of impunity pervades the Israeli army. - For the past two years, the Israeli government press office has only renewed a few press cards of Palestinian journalists, some of whom are long-standing correspondents for international news agencies, such as Reuters, Associated Press and AFP. The Israeli army's failure to take action about these many press freedom violations, along with accusations by senior government officials that the foreign media are abusing Israeli hospitality, and are biased and lazy, are signs of growing hostility to the foreign media. As well as being especially violent, this strategy aims to reduce the sources of information and control foreign coverage of the conflict. The allegations of "massacres" after the fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002 are an example of the harmful effects of a policy that aims to limit information and keep journalists out.