PRESS FREEDOM A CASUALTY IN LATEST CONFLICT

IFEX
International Freedom of Expression eXpress
3706/
May 14 2008
Canada

At least five journalists have been injured in Beirut in recent
days covering the fierce clashes between pro- and anti-government
factions, while media outlets have been forced to shut down, report
IFEX member in Lebanon the Maharat Foundation and other press freedom
organisations.

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), four
reporters and photographers for the daily opposition newspaper "Sada al
Balad" were injured in attacks while covering the conflict last week.

One of the photographers, Wadi Shlink, was in the Beshara al-Khoury
area taking "regular" pictures of young men setting tires on fire on 7
May. "Suddenly, 20 of them attacked me. I ran looking for the security
forces to protect me. Some soldiers tried to save me – in vain, because
they were outnumbered by the rioters. They didn’t calm down until they
had taken my camera," Shlink told free expression website Menassat.com.

According to Menassat, the army ignored street fighting in the Beirut
area of Corniche Mazraa, a traditional flashpoint between Sunni and
Shiite forces, and instead went after journalists, forbidding them from
taking pictures. Said Beyrouti, a reporter for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar
television, was kept from covering the fighting by the armed forces
and beaten over the head and had to be hospitalised, Menassat reports.

Other journalists have been detained by police, had their equipment
broken or their homes ransacked. On 12 May, two cameramen working for
Al Jazeera were slightly injured when gunmen fired on their vehicle,
reports ARTICLE 19.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah supporters forced the closure of pro-government
satellite TV channels Future TV and Future News, the daily newspaper
"Al-Mustaqbal" and Radio Orient on 9 May, says Reporters Without
Borders (RSF). The four media companies are all owned by the family
of Saad Hariri, the head of the Future movement, the anti-Syrian
majority party in the Lebanese parliament.

Rockets were fired early on 9 May at the headquarters of
"Al-Mustaqbal", starting a fire on one of its floors, reports
RSF. Soon afterwards, gunmen surrounded the offices of the radio
and television stations, and threatened to open fire if they did not
stop broadcasting.

Future employees and other journalists have been holding a daily sit-in
in front of the Future News building in Qantari to protest the closure.

The daily newspaper "Liwaa" also hasn’t been able to publish – its
printing house is located in the midst of the conflict zone, says
Maharat. And on 10 May, the headquarters of the Armenian-speaking
Radio Sevan was burned down in west Beirut, reports ARTICLE 19.

IFJ is supporting calls from the unions and Maharat to ensure
journalists’ safety, independence and their right to work. "We
are calling on all political parties to end their attacks on media
workers," says IFJ. "All journalists in Lebanon, including those
working from starkly different perspectives, are unarmed non-combatants
and must be treated accordingly. It is intolerable that journalists
become vulnerable targets in this conflict simply for doing their
jobs."

Maharat and others say the real problem is the politicisation of
the Lebanese media, which has become the mouthpiece of the political
group with which they are affiliated. The threats faced by reporters
now are not a result of working in a war zone, but because of the
"division of the Lebanese media between pro-government, opposition
and independent media" that reflect the political struggle, says
Maharat. It is calling on the media to "remain objective and not to
enter the circle of violence."

Clashes between the Hezbollah-led opposition and government supporters
started on 7 May in several west Beirut neighbourhoods on the back
of a general strike demanding wage hikes amid rising prices. In one
of the decisions last week that triggered the violence, government
officials said they would close down a private telephone network
operated by Hezbollah in south Lebanon and the southern parts of
Beirut. Hezbollah says the communications system was critical to its
success in its 34-day war against Israel in 2006.

The protests raised tensions in a country mired in a 17-month-old
political crisis between the Hezbollah-led opposition supported by
Iran and Syria and the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora,
who is backed by the West and Saudi Arabia. The standoff has left
the country without a president since November.

Fighting has moved outside the Lebanese capital this week,
fuelling fears that the violence could spiral into an outright civil
war. According to news reports, at least 81 people have been killed
and more than 250 have been wounded since last Wednesday in what
observers are calling the worst political crisis since the Lebanese
civil war of the 1980s.

Visit these links: – Maharat: – ARTICLE
19: – IFJ: –
RSF: – Menassat on
silencing Future TV: – Menassat on Beirut
ganging up on the press: – Menassat on the
casualty of the media: – Arab Press Network: