Mohammed Omer before he was beaten by Israeli security officials
Source: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/06/30/shin-bet-offers-palestinian-
journalist-gitmo-treatment, last accessed July 5, 2008
Mohammed Omer
Mel Frykberg, MIDEAST: When You Shoot the Messenger, IPS, July 3, 2008
GAZA CITY, Jul 3 (IPS) - The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it.
Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.
Omer was returning from Europe where he had addressed European parliamentarians on the situation on the ground in Gaza. In London he picked up a prize as joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (along with IPS correspondent Dahr Jamail).
Omer, who also reports for The Washington Report, told IPS he was verbally abused, strip-searched at gunpoint and physically beaten. He was later hospitalised with broken ribs and related trauma.
Israeli officials denied to IPS in Jerusalem that the award-winning journalist had been mistreated. They said the Gazan journalist had “lost his balance” after being searched on “suspicion of smuggling in illegal items.”
The officials were unable to explain how Omer, who is still hospitalised and in severe pain, “lost his balance” and then broke his ribs and severely bruised his arm in the “fall”.
The Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, has officially complained to Israel after accusations by an award-winning Palestinian journalist from Gaza that he was abused during almost four hours of detention at the border with Jordan.
Mohammed Omer, 24, says that he was manhandled and strip-searched and fainted during interrogation when he returned from a Dutch government-facilitated trip to London to collect a prestigious British journalism award, the Martha Gellhorn Prize.
Mr Omer, who is now in hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis with suspected cracked ribs after the incident on Thursday last week, was a joint winner of the prize for his reporting from the Strip.
Mr Omer said yesterday that he was ordered to strip down to his underwear and when he protested at being forced to remove his underpants a security officer “snatched” them off him. He said he later fainted and awoke to find a security official applying pressure to his upper chest. He said he vomited several times and two officers later dragged him by his legs to another location. His requests to contact the Dutch escort were rejected, he said.
Jim Lobe, LobeLog.com, Mohammed Omer’s Statement, July 3, 2008
“SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN THE DETENTION, INTEROGATION & TORTURE
OF PRIZE WINNING INTERNATIONAL JOURNALIST, AGE 24, GAZA NATIVE MOHAMMED OMER BY ISRAELI AUTHORITIES, JUNE 26-27, 2008.
Note: This is a compilation of his first hand account of the events of June 26 and June 27, 2008. On June 28th as this is being transcribed Omer is again in transit to a European hospital in Gaza due to chest pains and difficulty breathing and swallowing as a result of the following.
07:00, THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008:
Mohammed Omer arrives at the Jordanian transit center to catch the bus which will take him across the border to the Israeli transit center at Allenby, just west of Amman Jordan in the Occupied West Bank. Omer was returning from a multi-country speaking tour on the situation in Gaza in Europe in addition to receiving the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism with co-recipient Dahr Jamal. Omer at age 24 is the youngest person in history to receive this prestigious award. He arrived in Amman from France Saturday June 21, 2008, eager to get home for his brother’s wedding next Thursday. Israeli authorities refused him transit forcing him to remain in limbo on a Jordanian transit visa for five days until word arrived he’d be allowed to go home.
Boarding the bus that crosses the border between the Occupied Territories and Jordan, the following transpired.
09:50, THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008:
Mohammed Omer: “I arrived with others at the Israeli immigration terminal at Allenby around 9:50 AM, entering with the others on my transport, through luggage collection and security screening which leads into the holding area for passport control. As I stood in line to approach the passport agents, I believed everything to be okay and that I’d soon be home in Gaza. At this point a female Israeli soldier approached me and asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I replied, ‘Gaza’. She asked, ‘Where is that?’ and I answered in Hebrew, ‘Azzah’. She nodded, stating ‘Oh yes,’ before pausing and adding, ‘Actually, according to my computer, you don’t have an entry permit.’ Pointing to the rows of chairs facing the Passport agents she motioned me to have a seat and told me someone would call my name.