The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), on Thursday, condemned the Israeli barring of the Associated Press journalist, Nebi Qena, from covering the visit by Britain’s Prince William to the Israeli prime minister’s official residence, on Tuesday.
Nebi Qena, the AP’s chief television producer for Israel and the Palestinian territories, was held at the entrance to the residence for 45 minutes, forcing him to miss the event, while other journalists were allowed to enter.
PJS denounced, as well, the questioning that was conducted by the Israeli security agents with Qena, about his religion and ethnic background. PJS said it considers this questioning to be racism.
Over the years, PJS has noticed what it called disgraceful and indefensible behavior, in several incidents of Israeli security agents ordering international and Arab journalists to undergo strip searches at Netanyahu’s office, in addition to entering through metal detectors.
“This Israeli measure against Mr. Qena is added to the 740 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists and media outlets during 2017; and to the Israeli occupation forces killing the cameraman for Palestinian Ain Media Yasser Murtaja and Ahmad Abu Hussein, who were covering a mass demonstration along the Gaza border with Israel in April 2018,” statement concluded, according to the PNN.
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