Legal fight to overturn Israel's Gaza media ban - by Roy Greenslade
Rory McCarthy wrote last week about Israel's ban on journalists entering the Gaza Strip. He reported that international media companies had sent a letter of protest to Israel's prime minister. Two days ago the Foreign Press Association (FPA) took the matter a step further by appealing to Israel's supreme court to overturn the government's ban. The court petition, which names Gaza's military commander, the defense minister and the interior minister, claims the ban constitutes "a grave and mortal blow against freedom of the press and other basic rights and gives the unpleasant feeling that the state of Israel has something to hide." The Tel Aviv-based FPA represents foreign correspondents working in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and has about 460 members from 32 countries, representing print, TV and radio. "We believe the Israeli government has an obligation to keep the Gaza border open to international journalists," says Steven Gutkin, the FPA's chairman and Jerusalem bureau chief of Associated Press. "The foreign media serve as the world's window into Gaza and it's essential that we be allowed in." Israel's defence ministry says foreign journalists will not be allowed in until Gaza militants stop shooting. But a ministry spokesman, Shlomo Dror, suggested Israel was not happy with press coverage from Gaza. "Where Gaza is concerned, our image will always be bad," he said. "When journalists go in it works against us, and when they don't go in it works against us."
Note EU-Digest: Journalists can be wrong sometimes, but they can not be wrong all the time.
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