PARIS, January 14, 2010 (WAFA)- Reporters Without Borders (RSF)  condemned the detention and 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 12 January on a flight from Europe. One of his colleagues told Reporters Without Borders he was deported to the United States on a flight departing at 6 a.m. today.

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.”