PARIS, August 25, 2009 (WAFA)- Reporters Without Borders deplores the Israeli government’s attempts to pressure the Swedish government into condemning a 17 August article in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet that accused the Israeli army of allowing body organs to be harvested from Palestinians killed by its soldiers.
“Regardless of the article’s content and although we understand the public outcry if has triggered in Israel, the Israeli authorities must refrain from asking their Swedish counterparts to intervene,” Reporters Without Borders said. Aftonbladet alone is responsible for the articles it publishes. The Swedish government is not responsible.”
The press freedom organization added: “If the Israeli government thinks Israel has been defamed, it can take the matter to the courts. But seeking non-judicial sanctions against the journalist who wrote the article is not the solution.”
The offending article, accusing the Israeli authorities of turning a blind eye to trafficking in organs taken from dead Palestinians, was by reporter Donald Boström. It was based on an interview with the relatives of a young Palestinian killed in May 1992, whose body was taken by helicopter to Israel and was returned a few days later. The victim’s brother said he was convinced that organs were removed while the body was in Israel.
Israeli Army Minister Ehud Barak called the article “false and outrageous” and “anti-Semitic.” Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, issued a statement saying that the article “shocking and appalling.” But in Stockholm, the Swedish Foreign minister Carl Bildt disowned the ambassador’s remarks and stressed his government’s commitment to freedom of expression.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted angrily to the Swedish government’s refusal to criticize Aftonbladet, his spokesman accused the Swedish authorities of using freedom of expression as an easy excuse for not condemning anti-Semitism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We’re not asking the Swedish government for an apology, we’re asking for their condemnation.”
