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Washington Post Reporter Is Briefly Detained by Israeli Officers
Washington Post Reporter Is Briefly Detained by Israeli Officers
(about 2 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities issued statements of regret on Tuesday after police officers briefly detained The Washington Post’s bureau chief in Jerusalem and a colleague while they were conducting interviews at the Damascus Gate into the Old City, a site of frequent attacks by Palestinians against Israeli Jews in recent months.
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities issued statements of regret on Tuesday after police officers briefly detained The Washington Post’s bureau chief in Jerusalem and a colleague while they were conducting interviews at the Damascus Gate into the Old City, a site of frequent attacks by Palestinians against Israeli Jews in recent months.
The Foreign Press Association, a group that advocates for journalists, said the bureau chief, William Booth, and a Palestinian contract reporter for The Post, Sufian Taha, were held for about 40 minutes at a nearby police station after a complaint from a passer-by, though the pair had shown their government press office identification cards and had made clear they were working on an article.
The Foreign Press Association, a group that advocates for journalists, said the bureau chief, William Booth, and a Palestinian contract reporter for The Post, Sufian Taha, were held for about 40 minutes at a police station after a complaint from a passer-by, though the pair had shown their government press office identification cards and had made clear they were working on an article.
“When they asked police why they had been held, the police said they had suspected the journalists of ‘inciting Palestinians,’” the association said in a statement condemning the detentions.
“When they asked police why they had been held, the police said they had suspected the journalists of ‘inciting Palestinians,’ ” the association said in a statement condemning the detentions.
Kris Coratti, a Post spokeswoman, said in an email that “we regard the detention of any of our journalists anywhere as extremely troubling.”
Nitzan Chen, the head of the government press office, said Mr. Booth’s detention was “probably the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
As the story gained traction on social-media networks, Israeli officials scrambled. Nitzan Chen, the head of the government press office, said Mr. Booth’s detention was unnecessary and “probably the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding.” The Foreign Ministry said it would ask the police for “the necessary clarifications” on the matter, and went out of its way to praise Mr. Booth, a veteran correspondent who previously was The Post’s bureau chief in Mexico City and Los Angeles, among other roles.
Also Tuesday, Bahrain released four American journalists who had been detained two days earlier, though it accused them of “acts of vandalism and rioting” and charged them with “unlawful obstruction of vehicles and attending unlawful gatherings,” the Bahrain News Agency said.
“This is a regrettable incident, casting an unnecessary shadow over the work of an excellent journalist,” the ministry said in a statement. The police department, for its part, by evening issued a statement saying, “We regret if any distress was caused."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Berlin meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, weighed in, saying, “The press in Israel is robust, free, very energetic and free to say anything it wants.” He added, “That’s not the case in our neighborhood,” a reference to repression of the news media elsewhere in the Middle East.
Also on Tuesday, Bahrain released four American journalists who had been detained two days earlier, accusing them of “acts of vandalism and rioting” and charging them with “unlawful obstruction of vehicles and attending unlawful gatherings,” the official Bahrain News Agency said.
Freedom House, an organization that assesses the work climate for journalists around the world, said in its most recent annual report that Israel “enjoys a lively, pluralistic media environment in which press freedom is generally respected,” but government officials have recently been critical of foreign journalists.
Mr. Chen, the press office chief, threatened in a Feb. 3 Facebook post to revoke “press cards from journalists and editors who are negligent in their work and give headlines that are opposite from reality.” He was complaining about a post on Twitter by Al Jazeera and a CBS News headline, which reported that the authorities had killed three Palestinians near the Damascus Gate without also noting that the men had attacked border police officers with automatic weapons and knives. One of the officers died. (The CBS headline was changed.)
