I’m impressed that a newspaper outside of Israel has picked up on the story George Canavati. PA security forces incarcerated the Radio Bethlehem journalist for five days, because he dared to report on a power struggle between Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan.
Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian caught up with the just-released Canavati.
Asked if he believed the detention was intended to intimidate him, Canawati responded by twisting his ear between thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t make a mistake [in my report],” he said. “I was professional to the true sense of the word. I will never take their pinch of ear into consideration.”
The Palestinian Media Forum recently complained about other journalists detained by PA security forces. And a recent poll found that only 27 percent of the people in the West Bank believe they can criticize PA authorities without fear (down from 56 percent in 2007).
West Bank press freedom is an important story that hasn’t broken into Big Media consciousness, and I’m glad Sherwood put it on the table. Read the whole story.
