About IFEX:

News by region:

IFEX Campaigns and Advocacy:

IFEX Email Products:

Opportunities and assistance:

Alert

Al-Jazeera website reporter freed for lack of evidence after six months

(RSF/IFEX) - Palestinian journalist Awad Rajoub, a reporter for the Arabic-language website of the satellite TV station Al Jazeera, was freed on 24 May 2006 after being held by the Israeli authorities for six months. He was arrested on 30 November 2005 at his home in Doura, 10 km outside the West Bank city of Hebron, and accused by the Israeli military of "threatening state security."

The Al-Jazeera bureau in Paris told Reporters Without Borders the Israeli court that was supposed to try him ruled there was insufficient evidence and ordered his release. The Israeli authorities, who had seized his computer and mobile phone, had said his arrest was not linked to his work as a journalist.

"I was beaten and treated like an all-out criminal," Rajoub said after his release. Aged 29, he also writes for the Qatari newspaper "Al Sharq" and the Islam-on-line website.