RAMALLAH, February 22, 2018 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate (PJS) condemned on Thursday Israel’s detention of fellow journalist Mohammad Elwan, who was detained on Wednesday while covering a protest at Ofer military camp near Ramallah in solidarity with a detained activist.

Elwan was remanded in custody for 96 hours after charging him with obstructing the work of a soldier and attacking soldiers, which was denied by journalists who were at the scene and filmed the entire detention episode.

The video recordings refuted the Israeli accusations and showed soldiers targeting journalists in an attempt to prevent them from filming the protest and army reaction. An army officer even said that he wants to teach the Palestinian journalists a lesson with Elwan’s detention.

The PJS said that that detention and the mock session to remand Elwan “show beyond doubt the occupier’s intentions toward journalists in an attempt to prevent them from documenting and exposing the occupation practices.”

It said this incident proves what the PJS has been saying all the time regarding Israeli treatment of Palestinian journalists, and lately at a European Parliament hearing in Brussels, which decided to dispatch a special committee to the occupied territories to investigate Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists.

C.K./M.K.