Mohammed Omer's Latest Article with Links & Videos re Omer & other Palestinian Journalist- "Truth and Consequences Under the Israeli Occupation"
SEE THE FULL STORY BELOW THESE ACCOMPANYING & RELATED lINKS RE MOHAMMED OMER & OTHER PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS
PA Preventive Security Police arrests Hebron Journalist
Posted: 29 Jul 2008 04:10 PM CDT
Hebron: Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Nour Amir in Jerusalem
The Palestinian Authority (PA) Preventive Security Force (PSF) on Tuesday arrested Awadh Rajoub, a Hebron-area journalist, apparently as part of a general crackdown on non-conformist journalists and intellectuals.
Mohammed Omer: Palestinian Journalist Tortured by Israelis Talks (Video in 2 Parts)
Part One:
Part Two:
From triumph to torture
Israel's treatment of an award-winning young Palestinian journalist is part of a terrible pattern
John Pilger
Wednesday July 2 2008
The Guardian
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/02/israelandthepalestinians.civilliberties
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| Lift Travel Restrictions on Palestinian Journalist |
To: Israeli and Palestinian Authorities
Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, who lives in the West Bank, has been invited to attend a media conference in Germany. As required, he set about to request all of the necessary travel documents, including a visa that needs to be granted from the German representative office in Ramallah. After routine questioning regarding his political affiliations, it was not only determined that he was not a member of any party, nor formally associated with any organisation, but it was clear that he had never been arrested or detained by Israeli authorities. Mr Amayreh was granted an entry visa to Germany. However, the Israeli military authorities have refused to give him a permit to leave the West Bank. No Palestinian can travel abroad without receiving such a permit beforehand, otherwise he or she would be turned back once arriving at the Israeli-controlled border terminal at the Allenby Bridge.
continue reading at the link
NEWEST LINKS TO ARTICLES ABOUT MOHAMMED OMER
Thanks to Palestinian Think Tank Digest for the articles and links
SEE ALSO ALISON WEIR
AND JOHN PILGER
PLUS: Kenneth Ring, PhD
The Ordeal of Mohammed Omer
We are used to hearing about the hazards, often fatal, of being a journalist these days. Everyone is familiar with accounts of courageous Russian journalists who have been assassinated and of course with stories of war correspondents who have been killed or gravely wounded in the course of reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan. But what about the dangers of just being a Palestinian journalist who is simply trying to return to his own hometown in Gaza after being abroad?
Consider the case of a twenty-four-year-old reporter named Mohammed Omer.
Some background first: For the past six years Mohammed has been covering and reporting on the situation in Gaza and has published his articles in various periodicals in Europe, for the Inter Press Service News Agency and The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. His articles have received much recognition and several awards, including, most recently, the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which was presented to Mohammed in a special ceremony in London in June, 2008 – about which more in a moment.
Mohammed and his family, like many Palestinians, have suffered greatly because of the circumstances under which they live in Gaza. He himself was nearly killed by a bulldozer in the course of photographing the demolition of a neighbor's house and one of his brothers did lose his life as a teenager as a result of being shot by Israel Defense Forces on his way home from school. Another brother was shot in the leg, which had to be amputated. Mohammed's father has spent eleven years in Israeli prisons where torture, as is well known, is common. And in March, 2003, Mohammed returned to his home after school to find that he had it been demolished by an Israeli bulldozer. All his family's possessions – books, photographs, all his own notebooks, everything – were obliterated, and he and his family suddenly found themselves homeless.
It is not an unusual family story for people living in Gaza; on the contrary, one hears accounts like this all the time from the lips of Palestinians.
Now fast-forward to June, 2008. Mohammed has recently received word that he is to be a co-recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize. For this, he must get to London, but, as you know, it is not easy for any Gazan to leave the prison that Gaza has become under the unrelenting Israeli siege. Only after strenuous diplomatic efforts over several weeks by Dutch officials and a prize-winning Australian journalist living in England was it possible for Mohammed to leave Gaza to receive his award. While in Europe, Mohammed also spoke in Sweden, the Netherlands and Greece about his work, in addition to making a very moving acceptance speech in London during the ceremonies for the Gellhorn Prize.
Continue reading at the linkMohammed Omer - Truth and Consequences Under the Israeli Occupation
Posted: 01 Aug 2008 05:51 PM CDT
From The Nation
I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza. I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City. I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve them because of Israel's embargo. I have been recognized for my reporting, even in the United States and United Kingdom, where I have won two international awards. I have also been beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers.
This summer, at age 24, I was honored to learn that I had become the youngest journalist to receive the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for the famed American war reporter and awarded to journalists who counter propaganda with the truth. Although Israel has sealed Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians in what many now call the world's largest open-air prison, Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen lobbied the Israeli government to let me leave Gaza to receive my award in person. Upon my return from London, I was surrounded by Israeli security officers. I was stripped naked at gunpoint, interrogated, kicked and beaten for more than four hours. At one point I fainted and then awakened to fingernails gouging at the flesh beneath my eyes. An officer crushed my neck beneath his boot and pressed my chest into the floor. Others took turns kicking and pinching me, laughing all the while. They dragged me by my feet, sweeping my head through my own vomit. I lost consciousness. I was told later that they transferred me to a hospital only when they thought I might die.
Today, I have difficulty breathing. I have abrasions and scratches on my chest and neck. My hands don't function well; typing is difficult. My doctor informed me that due to nerve damage from one kick, I may be unable to father children and will need to have an operation.
Israeli attacks on journalists are not new; nor are they rare. In April, Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was killed by fire from an Israeli tank. He was in a car, clearly marked as press. According to Amnesty International, "Fadel Shana appears to have been killed deliberately although he was a civilian taking no part in attacks on Israel's forces."
Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Israeli military's widespread "abusive behavior" of Palestinian journalists. And the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that journalists covering Israeli military actions in the West Bank and Gaza "contend with perennial abuses at the hands of Israeli forces." In 2007 alone, Israeli soldiers shot photographers from Agence France-Presse, Al-Ayyam newspaper and Al-Aqsa TV. The television cameraman, Imad Ghanem, fell to the ground when wounded. Israeli forces then shot him twice more in the legs. Both of his legs have been amputated.
Could it be that despite their tanks, fighter planes and nuclear arsenal, Israel is threatened by our cameras and computers, which give the world access to images and information about their military occupation of Palestinians? Indeed, this month a Palestinian girl filmed an Israeli soldier shooting a blindfolded Palestinian at point blank range with a rubber bullet. The video aired widely, on CNN, NBC News and the BBC, among other media outlets.
Although Palestinians face this violence daily, the images and our stories rarely travel beyond our borders. Israel seems intent on hiding its oppression of Palestinians under its rule–including its dual system of laws, one giving civil, political and social rights to Israelis, and the other denying those rights to Palestinians living under occupation. This system allows Jewish settlers in the West Bank to enjoy freedom of movement and access to healthcare and education, while Palestinian children in Gaza die of curable illnesses because hospitals have run out of medicine.
Martha Gellhorn brought to light atrocities committed in World War II and in the Vietnam War. In her tradition, I remain committed to accurate reporting from Gaza today. For this I may suffer lifelong consequences. But I hold on to the hope that Americans–as well as journalists worldwide–will impress upon Israel the need to respect the rights of reporters. Freedom of speech and a free press are hallmarks of any democracy. I am proud to call myself a Palestinian and a journalist. The might of the Israeli military will not silence my pen or darken my camera lens.
SEE ALSO ALISON WEIR
AND JOHN PILGER
PLUS: Kenneth Ring, PhD
The Ordeal of Mohammed Omer
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