Reporter, detained by Israel, released
Israeli border police forcefully detained a veteran correspondent for the Al Jazeera satellite channel while she was reporting from an embattled Jerusalem neighbourhood where dozens of Palestinian families are slated for eviction by Jewish settlers.
Givara Budeiri was released late Saturday, several hours after border police detained her in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where she had been wearing body armour marked press.
Al Jazeera said police also destroyed equipment belonging to a cameraman for the channel.
Budeiri suffered a broken arm and remained under observation Sunday at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, said Walid Omary, the Jerusalem bureau chief for
Budeiri had been regularly from Sheikh Jarrah, Omary said.
On Saturday, she was covering a Palestinian sitin at the site. Omary said Israeli border police asked for her ID and that she offered to call her driver to get it from her car.
Omary said the forces refused to let her retrieve it and instead started shouting and pushing her. He said she told them not to touch her. At one point, the officers handcuffed her and pushed her into a border police jeep. Omary said Budeiri is accredited by Israel’s Government Press Office. Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment. Al Jazeera’s acting director general, Mostefa Souag, condemned the police actions. The systematic targeting of our journalists is in total violation of all international conventions, he said.