Press freedom groups have condemned the detention and imminent expulsion of US journalist Jared Malsin, who has worked for the past two years as an editor with Ma’an, an independent Palestinian news agency based in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Malsin, 26, was arrested and placed in a detention centre on arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on the afternoon of January 12 on a flight from Europe. One of his colleagues told Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) he was due to be deported to the United States on a flight departing at 6 a.m. Thursday.
The Israeli authorities have accused him of working without a permit. “That’s ridiculous,” a Ma’an journalist said. “Everyone knows that the Israelis don’t issue work permits for the West Bank. He is clearly being made to pay for working for this Palestinian news media.”
George Hale, an editor at Ma’an, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, the authorities informed both Malsin and his partner Faith Rowold that they had been denied entry for “security reasons.” Their mobile phones were briefly returned to them, only to be confiscated again just after midnight when they were transferred to holding cells.
The Israeli Ministry of Interior issued a deportation order on Wednesday morning against Malsin for “security reasons,” according to his lawyer, Castro Daoud. “Interrogation transcripts show that Malsin was deemed a security risk because of his political beliefs,” Daoud told CPJ. “Security at the airport gathered news stories written by him which they deemed critical of the State of Israel.”
He added that security officials also interrogated Malsin about a pro-Palestinian activist group called the International Solidarity Movement. “My client has no affiliation with any activist group; the allegations that he represents a security risk are baseless,” Daoud added.
“We are alarmed by the Israeli government's efforts to deport Jared Malsin on vague security charges,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Programme Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem “We call on the Israeli authorities to ensure that our colleague be allowed to carry out his work without further harassment.”
Malsin was slated for expulsion back to Prague at 6:05 a.m. on January 14 but Daoud succeeded in obtaining an injunction against the order. “We successfully appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to overrule the Ministry of Interior’s decision thanks to pressure from the US Embassy,” Daoud told CPJ
Israeli authorities do not recognise Ma’an as a news organisation and as such Malsin has been entering Israel and the Occupied Territories on three-month visitor’s visas. Malsin’s colleagues say that he is known to the Israeli military and civilian authorities and had recently been invited to tour a military base on a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Malsin has been denied access to a shower, clean clothes, and reading and writing materials, according to Hale, who was able to briefly talk to Malsin on Thursday morning.
