When the reporter becomes the story
The controversial arrest of a young reporter who cast a critical eye on
the IDF is raising new concerns about human rights in Israel's
self-proclaimed security zone.
By Daniel Sobelman
Last Thursday a group of about 100 people gathered
outside the Beirut headquarters of the International Red
Cross. The group - mainly University of Lebanon students
and lecturers from the school of communications - was
there to protest the detention of one of the school's
students, two weeks earlier.Cossete Elias Ibrahim is
studying for her master's degree at the University of
Lebanon. In recent years she has been living in the student
dormitories in Beirut. She occasionally freelances for some
newspapers, including the daily A-Liwa. Ibrahim was due to
start working as a reporter for the French news agency.
But she was arrested 19 days ago in her native village of
Rameish, in the central sector of Israel's self-proclaimed
security zone. Ibrahim was arrested as she visited her
parents. Reports from Lebanon allege that Cossete, 25,
was detained by Israeli forces, along with her brother,
Degaulle Boutros Bou Taleb, 40, and another resident of
the village, Samir Georges Khyame, 22.
Lebanese publications have offered several reasons for
Ibrahim's detention. The principal allegations are:
l her articles portraying Israeli occupation policy in the
security zone in a negative light,
l her refusal to cooperate with the South Lebanese Army
and IDF,
l her collaboration with Hezbollah,
l and, that she passed information on IDF movements to the
Lebanese army.
At the time of her arrest, a senior security source claimed
that Ibrahim had been detained by the SLA - not by the IDF
- after she had used the press card in her possession to
help the Hezbollah. The "Hezbollah used someone with a
press card" this source stated, stressing that "Cossete
Ibrahim was part of a Hezbollah operation, and was not
there as a reporter." Another Israeli source stated that he
was by no means certain that she is a journalist.
However, whether this matter refers to a journalist who has
published critical articles about the IDF and the SLA, or to a
civilian who has helped in strikes against Israeli forces, her
detention has enabled the human rights organizations and
the Lebanese government to place the subject of the
al-Khyam jail on the agenda. Inevitably, representing
Ibrahim as a journalist and not merely as a Lebanese
citizen held in detention has changed things. It is not every
day that journalists in southern Lebanon are taken into
detention.
Unlike other detentions which have become a matter of
routine, news of Ibrahim's detention has resulted in a wave
of reaction and criticism by international civil rights
organizations, who were joined this time by the
Paris-based Journalists Without Frontiers. Last Tuesday
the organization sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister
Ehud Barak, demanding that action be taken to release the
detained journalist, and expressing the fear that Ibrahim is
being tortured. The Committee for the Protection of
Journalists in New York has also written to Barak on this
matter. In addition, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel
has contacted Brigadier General Uri Shoham, the military
attorney general, demanding that the reason for Ibrahim's
detention be made public.
Also, the Lebanese committee which deals with civilians
imprisoned in Israeli jails has appealed to the Lebanese
leadership, to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, French
President Jacques Chirac, and to the foreign embassies in
Beirut. Earlier this week, Lebanese President Emil Lahoud
said, "The journalist's detention by Israel is an act of
barbarism." He added, "We cannot stand quietly by in this
matter, especially when we see so many countries
hastening to support the freedoms throughout the world."
The chairman of the Lebanese committee dealing with this
issue, Muhammad Safa, claims: "The Israelis are afraid that
families of journalists held at al-Khyam will tell the media
about the dreadful things." Lebanese reporters arriving at
Rameish village to collect testimony from Ibrahim's parents
- from whom nothing at all has been heard so far - were
cautioned by the villagers that this could harm the family.
Lebanese media have reported that the SLA has forbidden
the parents to use the telephone.
Israel has long maintained that the al-Khyam prison is run
by SLA forces, and Israel is in no way involved. Official
sources in Israel state that conditions in the prison are
relatively good, and that the International Red Cross is
entitled to visit at any time. However, Israel does not permit
journalists to visit the place. Human rights organizations,
following interviews with former detainees, have published
a considerable number of testimonials of electric torture
there and of extremely harsh conditions. According to
Amnesty International, 181 prisoners are in al-Khyam,
including six women. One of women, Al-Abdeh Qassem
Malkani, is over 70 years old.
Not a single detainee of those held in al-Khyam prison
receives a proper trial or is provided with proper legal
representation, human rights advocates maintain. Some
have been there - without trial - for over 10 years. Amnesty
International has recently reported that a few days after
being detained, Ibrahim was taken to the hospital in Marj
Ayoun, possibly after being tortured. An Amnesty
spokesman said that several lawyers had volunteered to
help Ibrahim.
Civil rights organizations say that visits by the International
Red Cross do not help, as the organization neither
documents nor publishes reports on the places visited. The
Red Cross representatives are not permitted to speak of
prison conditions. That could be the reason why Ibrahim's
friends chose to protest against her detention outside the
Red Cross offices
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