Israel Matzav

Female journalists face 'extreme violence' in....

You would think that three days after American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy was lucky to escape with two broken arms after being blindfolded for two hours while Egyptian police put their hands down her pants that Egypt would at least appear on a list of countries that harass female journalists. You would think that nine months after American television journalist Lara Logan was gang raped by an Egyptian mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square - barely escaping with her life - that Egypt would at least appear on a list of countries that harass female journalists. But you'd be wrong. Guess who's on the list instead.

Israel has been pinpointed by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) as one of six countries where female journalists face “extreme levels of violence” while carrying out their professional duties.

In a letter sent to United Nations General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon to mark the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which took place Friday, the IFJ highlights Mexico, the Philippines, Somalia, Russia, Nepal and Israel as countries where women journalists face “threats, political pressure, violence, rape and abuse… either due to their gender or simply for doing their job.”

Yes, really. But get a load of the difference between Israel and the other countries mentioned.

While there have been several reports in Israel of female journalists being harassed and arrests of Palestinian female journalists, in all of the other five countries mentioned in the letter women journalists have been actually killed or shot during the course of their work.

So why did Israel make the list? Because the security forces had the audacity to insist that female officers ensure that female journalists whose hostility to Israel is far from secret weren't carrying anything untoward in their underwear.

Earlier this year, in an episode that the media dubbed “bra-gate,” a female journalist from the Al- Jazeera television network was denied entry to a press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s after refusing to remove her bra for a security check.

A similar incident took place in July when two female journalists, one from Agence France-Presse, were asked to remove their bra behind a curtain before it was x-rayed for security reasons.

There are a lot of other double standards against Israel in this designation. Read the whole thing.

It will be interesting to see whether our own media take on the IFJ via the editorial pages.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, International Federation of Journalists, Lara Logan, Mona Eltahaway

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 AM