From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Tue Apr 09 2002 - 21:27:13 MDT
On Wednesday, April 10, 2002, at 01:17 am, David Lubkin wrote:
> If the press ignores a legitimate warning, I have no problem with them
> being arrested and charged with a felony. If no reasonable
> alternatives exist, force, up to deadly force, is justifiable.
Agreed. But this is not what we have been seeing this past week. The
Israelis declared the city of Ramallah to be a closed military zone, and
ordered all journalists to vacate the area. Reporters from various
countries are reporting that they have been shot at, had stun grenades
thrown at them, and even had tanks advance upon them, all without
warning. Several journalists have been injured, and all say they were
not given any prior warnings. The Israelis claim that the expulsion of
journalists from the area was their prior warning, and that any
journalists not obeying that order are now legitimate targets of the
military.
The U.S. military uses similar tactics, but they just arrest
journalists, take them into custody, and confiscate their film. I don't
know of any instances of the U.S. military attacking unarmed journalists
without warning.
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