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Foreign Press Association condemns media blackout in Gaza
Osaka News.Net
Tuesday 18th November, 2008
Israel is refusing to allow journalists to cover its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Power to the region has been cut following the Israeli army's decision to shut down the only power plant, while UN food supplies have also been stopped.
UN officials say the 1.5 million population, more than half of which are children, are in dire straits. Israel imposed the media ban to limit coverage of the happenings in Gaza, a move that has largely been successful.
The week-long ban of preventing journalists entering the besieged area has caused widespread condemnation form the media as an unprecedented violation of press freedom.
Steve Gutkin, the AP bureau chief in Jerusalem, who heads the Foreign Press Association in Israel says he knows of no foreign journalist that has been allowed to enter Gaza in the last week.
Gutkin said while Israel has barred foreign press from entering Gaza in the past, the length of the current ban makes it unprecedented. He added that he has received no “plausible or acceptable” explanation for the ban.
The Foreign Press Association reiterated its condemnation of the closure on Monday: “We regard this as an unconscionable breach of the Israeli Government’s responsibility to allow journalists to do their jobs in this region."
“The international media serve as the world's window into Gaza providing vital coverage of all aspects of Gazan life to news consumers around the world,” the organization added in a statement.
A journalist for a major international news organization, speaking anonymously on Monday said that he had been attempting to enter Gaza consistently since 9 November and was denied entry each time.
Some journalists argued that media blackout was an attempt to block coverage of its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel has almost totally sealed all commercial and humanitarian crossings into Gaza, pushing the territory to the brink of humanitarian disaster.
“This is Israel's policy to not show what's going on in Gaza," said Conny Mus, a reporter for the Dutch television station RTL speaking to the AP. Mus spoke from the Israeli side of the Erez crossing, and was among 14 journalists who had unsuccessfully sought entry to Gaza on Wednesday morning.
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Comments on this story
Anonymous
12-31-08, 04:37 PM |
Foreign Press Association condemns media blackout in Gaza
Israel policy it look like more and more the policy of pre war Germany, they also must remember what it was like when they where the outcast and not keep telling other nation of the bad time they had before the second world war. Many nations around the world experienced oppression and social abuses and not just the jews,lets remember the thirty millions russian under Stalin and I can go on and on, this mean as my point of view as condamnation of their forein policy, but absolutly confirm their right to be as a nation the forein policy used by the jews is totally wrong and I am a person with a 8 grade education, and I do not understand what it is wrong with the government of the world why they do not use a more stern policy thurs the state of Israel in order to make them understand that what they are doing is wrong.
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Anonymous
12-31-08, 05:54 PM |
world is mute spectator!
where in the world humanity exist? The world is a mute spectator. The atrocities of Israel cannot be shown to the world as there is no freedom of expression. Press is helpless and no one in the world can pressurise (or dont want to in real sense) Israel for it. This article clears that Israel want to rule the world by becoming a dictator country and then blame the Islamic militants for their retaliation. No one in the world can ever forget the well planned genocide in sabra and shatila camps. Its high time wake up human, wake up.
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