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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We now turn to the treatment of Palestinian media workers held in Israeli prisons since October 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists reviewed testimony and evidence from 59 Palestinian journalists, finding strikingly consistent reports of beatings, forced stress positions, sensory deprivation, sexual violence including rape, starvation and medical neglect while detained. The journalists lost an average of 52 pounds in Israeli prisons. Most of them were held under Israel’s so-called administrative detention policy and were never charged with any crime.
AMY GOODMAN: The Committee to Protect Journalists recently released its findings in a report headlined 'We returned from hell': Palestinian journalists recount torture in Israeli prisons. This is part of the testimony of Palestinian photojournalist Shadi Abu Sido. He was detained in the notorious Sde Teiman prison for over 100 days.
SHADI ABU SIDO: [translated] I was filming the suffering of people in Al-Shifa medical complex and I am a civilian. He ordered me to take off all my clothes so I did. Then he tied my hands behind my back immediately and said to me, “You will learn the meaning of journalism in Tel Aviv here.” He tied my hands, blindfolded me, and the first thing he did when he finished was break a rib, here. That was the welcome. After that he made me sit for more than 10 hours in the cold. It was in March. More than 10 hours sitting naked in the winter. Not to mention that he would come and beat me with punches. And that was just the beginning, along with the verbal insults.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we are joined by Sara Qudah, Middle East and North Africa regional director at the Committee to Protect journalists, joining us from Paris, France. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Sara. Explain what you found.
SARA QUDAH: Thank you, Amy. To be honest, this report was one of the most difficult reports to work on because you are listening to human beings who are describing inhuman conditions they have to face for months and some of them for years. The scale of these testimonies point to something far beyond an isolated misconduct that Israel tries to convince the general public. Across 58 testimonies from the 59 journalists that we interviewed, they describe recurring sets of abuse from beatings, starvation, sexual violence that even reached to actual rape in so many cases, and medical neglect, directed at journalists because they are journalists and because of their work.
This exposed a deliberate strategy by Israel to intimidate journalists and destroy their ability to be a witness to what is happening in Gaza. Torture and abuse inside the Israeli prisons has been reported on for so many years, but the scale and the intensity of the abuse and torture since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza has increased and intensified.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Could you tell us, have the Israeli authorities responded at all to your findings?
SARA QUDAH: In a single case they did respond to us, and the response was that they treat all prisoners under the international human law and they investigate any misconduct that happens inside the prisons. But when we sent our emails and messages to the Israeli prison facilities and to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s office and the Ministry, they did not respond to any of the testimonies of the journalists that we interviewed.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How many of these Palestinian journalists remain in prison?
SARA QUDAH: Until today, we have 32. Until the day of publishing the report, there were 30 journalists who were still in prison. But as of today, we have still 32 journalists who are in prison. We were able to contact one of the journalists, a female journalist, through her lawyer, and she did report on being beaten and that she was abused inside the facilities. She also told us—or she told her lawyer and her lawyer told us—that she did submit a complaint regarding the abuse and the torture. And in return of her complaint, she was put in confinement, in solitary confinement.
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