WEST BANK: Family reaction as Israel arrests Al Jazeera reporter Awad Rajoub in West Bank.

Record ID: 565308

  • Title: WEST BANK: Family reaction as Israel arrests Al Jazeera reporter Awad Rajoub in West Bank.
  • Date: 2nd December 2005
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) HALED AMARI SAYING: "They want to force him to to disclose his sources and of course this is unacceptable. Every journalist under the sun has the right to maintain the privacy of his sources to keep, because otherwise if we are to disclose our sources nobody would trust us any more. So this is the issue. It has nothing to do with security."
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA9P4A9FVXF8EF5TES8FH8J9XY
  • Story Text: Israeli forces have arrested a reporter for the Web site of the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera television station in the West Bank town of Hebron, a military spokeswoman and television official said on Thursday (December 1).
    The wife of Awad Rajoub described how Israeli soldiers arrested him at his house in Hebron on Wednesday (November 30) evening.
    "They entered the house, searched it, Israeli soldiers were in each corner of the house, they asked for the computer, they asked for the Jawal (Palestinian phone network) and searched the house before they went out, and they confiscated his computers. And then they told him to get dressed and that they want to take him and they left with him," the wife of 29 years old Awad told Reuters at the family house.
    An army spokeswoman confirmed that Awad was held saying it was "for security reasons", and would not provide any details.
    Haled Amari, Awad's colleague who works for Al Jazeera English website, said Israel had arrested Awad to unveil his sources.
    "They want to force him to to disclose his sources and of course this is unacceptable. Every journalist under the sun has the right to maintain the privacy of his sources to keep, because otherwise if we are to disclose our sources nobody would trust us any more," Amari said at his office.
    Qatar-based Al Jazeera launched its Arabic-language broadcasts in the Middle East in 1996. The network fields correspondents in Israel and the Palestinian territories and has an independent Web site.
    Israel conducts frequent arrest raids in the West Bank which it captured in the 1967 Middle East War, targeting suspected militants or accomplices in a five-year-old Palestinian uprising.
    Palestinian officials say these operations make it difficult to enforce a shaky truce agreed on early in the year. Israel says the raids are critical to preventing attacks against its citizens.
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