As you may know, the IPS correspondent in Gaza, Mohammed Omer, was detained last Thursday by Israeli authorities on his return from Europe where he received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism and went on a brief speaking tour. He is currently in a hospital back in Gaza recovering from the physical wounds incurred during his interrogation. His experience resulted in an official protest by the Dutch government and some attention in the British press, especially The Guardian and The Independent, as well as in the IPS cast itself. The Israeli government’s explanation Mohammed’s wounds, as recounted by IPS correspondent Mel Frykberg, seems somehow unconvincing, although hopefully a thorough investigation, as promised by Israeli’s ambassador to The Hague, will shed some additional light on the matter.
Earlier this week, colleagues sent me a lengthy — but quite eloquent — statement by Mohammed about his experience that, with his permission, I am posting on the blog. I found his thoughts about Shylock’s appeals in the “Merchant of Venice” to his Christian persecutors as Mohammed himself was undergoing what must have been a very traumatic and deeply disillusioning experience at the hands of his fellow human beings to be particularly compelling. You can judge for yourself.
“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.
One hour and a half later , my name still had not been called. I watched as people with American and European passports easily traversed passport control and questioning as well as the VIP club members who simply show passports and pass. I continued to wait.
I was called by a blond haired man with green eyes, a Shin Bet agent, (hereafter referred to by the Israeli acronym Shabak), the internal Israeli intelligence division similar to the FBI or MI-5 in the US or Britain. In Hebrew he asked, ‘Efo Mokhammed?’
In English I replied, ‘Yes, I am Mohammed.’
He asked me to come to him and then asked where my bags were. I pointed to the holding area with my luggage, two pieces: an overnight backpack and a medium size suitcase. He asked if I brought anything illegal with me and responded of course not.
The blond Shabak then asked for my cell phone, telling me to turn it off and remove the battery. I asked if I could make a phone call quickly to let my Dutch Embassy escort, who was waiting on the other side of the terminal know what was happening. The shabak replied forcefully, ‘No! You can’t’.
This was my first indication this delay was not routine. Had it been, there would have been no issue with me informing my diplomatic escort of the situation.
Note: Absent a watch, wall clock or mobile phone, times can only be approximated from this point forward.
APPROXIMATELY 11:00, THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008
I removed the battery from the cell phone as I have been asked and placed my luggage on the two metal tables as requested. He then asked me to leave my belongings and follow him. I recognized we were entering the Shin Bet offices at Allenby. Upon entering, he motioned for me to sit in a chair within a closed corridor. I could see nothing beyond the walls, only the cameras above my head watching me.
APPROXIMATELY 12:30 , THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008
After what seemed to be one hour and thirty minutes, both doors at the end of the corridor opened. I watched as one of the Palestinian passengers exited securing his belt to his trousers. A second man followed behind and was struggling to put on his T-shirt. Immediately I realized I was not in a good place. The rooms from which they exited must be used for strip searching. Suddenly, I became nervous, but stayed calm with all the soldiers.
A uniformed shabak officer with police clothes, referred to as Avi by his co-workers told me to come with him. My luggage had been brought and he proceeded to empty each of all contents, manually checking every item from underwear to the gifts of perfume I’d purchased for friends and family. He then tossed the gifts to the other side of the table. Shortly thereafter, a well built muscular blond man in his forties joined Avi while green eyes from earlier entered the room to supervise. Green eyes began what soon became apparent to me to be an interrogation.
‘What is this?’ he says pointing to what is obviously clothing. ‘What is this?’, ‘What is this?’ he continues to pepper in elementary English as each item is removed from my luggage. Avi now moves to my backpack, (overnight bag) containing my documents, letters from readers throughout Europe, copies of e-mails, my articles, my journalist notebooks and the business cards of members of parliament in Greece and Sweden as well as those of members in the House of Commons in England in addition to cards from various business people I met throughout Europe. All of my records, contacts and correspondence of my 3-week trip, not to mention all of my notes for future stories the intelligence orders examined. They then collected all of my documents and dumped them into a blue box adding my cell phone and the memory cards storing all of the photographs from my trip and the presentations I made to the governments of The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Greece and in the United Kingdom.
They were looking for something specific but I wouldn’t know what until green eyes demanded, ‘Where is the money, Mohammed?’
What money I thought. Of course I had money on me. I was traveling.
Confused, I replied I had some money from various nations but not much. He commanded I place all currency on the table, which I did. It amounted to the equivalent of about four hundred pounds–roughly $800 USD. For a moment I was relieved, thinking this was just a typical shakedown. I’d lose the cash with me, but that would be about it.
However, my traveling money failed to suffice. Dissatisfied, he pressed, ‘Where is the English pound and how much you have?’
I realized he was after the award stipend for the Martha Gellhorn Prize from the UK and I told him I did not have it with me. I’d arranged for a bank transfer rather than carry it with me. Visibly irritated the intelligence agent continued to press for money.
Around me, its filled with hall room filled with more intelligence officers, bringing the total Israeli personnel, most well armed in the room to eight: eight Israelis and me. At this point I realized this wasn’t a simple shakedown.
Dissatisfied that larger sums of money failed to materialize, green eyes accused me of lying. I again repeated the prize money went to bank draft and I already had shown him all the cash I had on me. Avi interjected, ordering me to empty my pockets, which I already had. Seeing they had tapped out, he escorted me into another room, this one empty.
‘OK take off your clothes’ Avi the intelligence officer ordered.
I asked why. A simple pat-down would have disclosed any money belts or weapons; besides, I had already gone through an x-ray machine before entering the passport holding area.
He repeated the order.
Removing all but my underwear, I stood before Avi. In an increasingly belligerent tone he ordered, ‘take off everything’.
‘I am not taking off my underwear,’ I stated. Again he ordered me to remove my underwear.
At this point I informed him that an escort from the Dutch embassy was currently waiting for me on the other side of the interrogation center and that I was under diplomatic transit.
He replied he knew that thus indicating he didn’t care and again insisted I strip. Again I refused. There was no reason for me to do so.
At this point he placed his hand on his hip revolver and I became quite frightened. Tears welled in my eyes and I began crying, ‘Why are you treating me this way?’ I asked attempting to maintain my composure. ‘I am human being.’
For a moment I flashed on the scene in the Oscar winning film, The Pianist where the Jewish man, being humiliated by a Nazi quoted Shakespeare, invoking his faith in place of written words, ‘Doth a Jew not have eyes?’ the old man queried, attempting to appeal to the humanity buried somewhere in the soul of his oppressor. Finding myself confronting the same racism and disdain I wanted to ask Avi, ‘Doth a Palestinian not have eyes?’
Like the Nazi, would his indoctrination inoculate him from empathy as well? Likely, I reasoned, it would.
Avi smirked, half chuckling as he informed me, ‘This is nothing compared to what you will see now.’
With that the intelligence officer unholstered his weapon, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. Completely naked, I stood before him as he proceeded to feel me up one side and down the other. He knew I had nothing on. The x-ray would have shown such and once people pass through the first security check, no one is allowed to leave the area, even to go have a smoke, get food or drink.
Avi then proceeded to demand I do a concocted sort of dance, ordering me to move to the right and the side. When I refused, he forced me under his own power to move side to side. Terrified now, I started to cry. Backing off, he ordered me to get dressed and follow him.
Returning to the room with my luggage, the blond intelligence officer initiated a discreet form of psyops as he proceeded to dissect my belongings. ‘You are a crazy man,’ he said nonchalantly, shaking his head side-to-side signifying disgust.
‘Is there anyone who is Gazan who would go to France, see Paris and then come back to Gaza where there is no food, no fuel, no clean water? Where there is darkness?’
As he spoke his tone dispensed words in slices of condescension.
‘Or do you like to be around the Hamas system in Gaza?” he accused, not looking for an answer or giving me the freedom or ability to respond.
Goading, he continued. ‘Aren’t you ashamed to have your name and reputation associated with such a dirty place as Gaza?’
Finally I responded. ‘Returning home is my choice. I want to be a voice for those who have no voice and get the truth out about Gaza to the world,” I stated forcibly, adding, ‘I have no affiliation with the Hamas. I don’t even think they like me.’
The fact is, politicians rarely have an affinity for those charged with overseeing their actions in the press.
Patronizing, he continued in less than optimal English, ‘You speak well English, where did you study?’
‘Islamic University in Gaza’, I replied. Peripherally I watched as the other agents seemed to be reveling in ransacking my belongings with total disregard for order and fragility. Patiently I requested they repack the items once they finished checking them. Avi barked at me, telling me to shut up and not interfere.
Angered, I replied, ‘I am a journalist and I’m not accustomed to shutting up. I am asking please…’
‘You don’t touch anything,’ he bellowed.
Dropping my arms in a motion of acquiescence, I relented, replying, ‘All right.’
My protests seemed to encourage their zeal for exploit and further invasion of my privacy. I watched helplessly as Avi and another young man proceeded to open the designer perfumes I’d purchased in Europe.
‘Why the perfumes,’ the blond interrogator asked.
‘They are gifts for the people I love,’ I replied.
He retrieved and held up the European chocolates. Motioning to them, I added, ‘And the chocolate is for a pregnant woman in Gaza who has always dreamed of eating European chocolates.’
Superciliously he replied, ‘Oh, do you have love in your culture?’
Back to Shakespeare, ‘Doth a Palestinian not have ears? Are we not human?’ The callous and racist nature of his taunt aggravated. Beginning to lose my patience, realizing his attempts to infuriate me by sliding through insults in the guise of questions, I countered that of course we have love in our culture.
At this moment he spied the visitor’s
7:39
