Journalists in the West Bank face mounting suppression

LeMonde

3 days ago

Iman Khweira still hasn't dared to tell her youngest son, 8-year-old Ezz Eldeen, that his 45-year-old father, Samir, has been arrested by the Israeli army. She fears her son would not be able to cope. The reporter for local Nablus radio station J-Media – whose offices were shut down by the Israeli army two weeks after October 7 – was arrested by about 10 soldiers on April 10, in the middle of the night. "How do you explain to a little boy that his father is in prison because he's a journalist?" she said, speaking by phone on Thursday, July 17, from the northern city in the occupied West Bank.
The 43-year-old mother has not been able to visit her husband since his arrest. She was allowed just one phone call, in mid-April. Next to him, a prison guard told him to "absolutely not answer" any questions about his place of detention. Through a lawyer, Iman learned that the father of her children was being held in Nafha prison, in the Negev Desert. Despite two appeals – one of which has already been dismissed – the Palestinian must remain imprisoned until October 8, under administrative detention, which allows Israel to imprison suspects without formal charges.
The former host of a weekly radio show is reportedly in poor health and "regularly beaten," according to Iman, who has spoken with some of his recently released fellow prisoners. She tried, unsuccessfully, to send him medication. Above all, despite repeated requests from his lawyer, Iman still does not know why her husband was arrested. According to his lawyer, he is suspected of "links with Hamas," which he has always denied, and of "incitement to terrorism." "A few weeks before he was taken, an Israeli army officer came to the house to threaten him," she said. "He said: 'We're watching you, you must not speak on the radio anymore.'"