----- Original Message -----
From: Council for the National Interest Foundation
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:30 PM
Subject: Award Winning Journalist Tourtured By Israel
On June 26, 2008 Palestinian journalist and Washington Report on Middle
East Affairs correspondent, Mohammed Omer was stopped by Israeli security
agents while traveling from London to his home in Gaza. Omer was in London to
receive the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism as a result of his
courage in reporting the news, his commitment to an oppressed people, and his
conviction, against violent retaliation.
Initially, Omer's chances of reaching London to accept the award had
been unpromising. Israel refused to grant him an exit permit out of Gaza, and
ultimately, diplomatic intervention was necessary to obtain the permit. On his
way back home, Omer ran into the same problem. Though given permission to
return (again, only through extensive and painstaking diplomatic
intervention), Omer was stopped in Amman and refused entry into Rafah.
Finally, on June 26, he was told that arrangements had been made to get
him across the border. Dutch diplomats would receive him at the Allenby
crossing, and from there would escort him home to the Gaza Strip. Despite his
diplomatic escort, Omer was detained by Israeli Shin Bet security agents.
The agents at first asked Omer for the stipend that came with his award.
When he told them he did not have it with him, they proceeded to strip him
down and beat him unconscious. Later, Omer would recall "one of them gouging,
scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He
scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my
head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time.
Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I
lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and
terror." Vomiting and going in and out of consciousness, he was dragged to a
Palestinian ambulance, where the GSS agents tried to have him sign a contract
indemnifying them from their actions.
The Palestinian medic in the ambulance refused, and, after threatening
to contact the Dutch embassy escort waiting for Omer, the Israeli agents
finally let them through. Omer woke up in a hospital in Jericho, from which he
was released and escorted home to Gaza. The ordeal he had gone through,
however, was not so easily dissipated. The next day, suffering from cracked
ribs and other injuries, he was admitted to a hospital in Gaza, where he
remains as of this writing.
Please join other CNI Foundation members concerned about the fate of
Mohammed Omer and other journalists in signing a petition which will be
delivered to Secretary of State Rice condemning Israel's attacks on
journalists, both Palestinian and international. Add your voice to Mohammed
Omer's on behalf of voiceless Gazans and all Palestinians living under Israeli
military occupation-an occupation made possible by American tax dollars.
To Sign the Petition and find out more information please CLICK HERE
Click here to make a tax-deductible donation:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2836Council for the
National Interest Foundation
1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1 7 Washington, DC 20024
800.296.6958 7 202.863.2951 7 Fax: 202.863.2952
http://cnifoundation.org/
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