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Reporters Without Borders: Israeli Attacks on Lebanese Media Possible Geneva Convention Violation |
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Written by Wire
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Thursday, 27 July 2006 |
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard has gone to Beirut, where he has met with executives and editors of news media that have been the victim of Israeli air strikes including the LBC, New TV and Al Manar television stations. He also met with representatives of the National Council of media.
Since the start of the fighting, the Israeli military has destroyed the transmitters of several TV stations, killing an LBC technician, reduced the
premises of Al Manar, the Hezbollah TV station, to ruins, inflicted injuries on a three-member New TV crew and killed a young woman photographer, Layal Nagib, near Tyre.
In the case of the air strikes on LBC's installations, neither the official or unofficial explanations have been in any way satisfactory. The usual Israeli excuses do not suffice, and Reporters Without Borders calls for a transparent investigation to determine who has been responsible.
Despite the air strikes, the broadcasts of all of the Lebanese TV stations can again be received in Lebanon.
The goal of this visit, for Reporters Without Borders, is to demonstrate its solidarity with Lebanon's journalists - regardless of the positions of the
media concerned - and to stress that there can be no grounds for targeting journalists, who like all civilians are protected by the Geneva Conventions, or for targeting any news media, which - according to international conventions - cannot be viewed as military targets.
Reporters Without Borders is therefore preparing to ask the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate these Israeli attacks on the grounds that they are violations of the Geneva Conventions. (This Berne-based commission was created to investigate any alleged serious violation of the conventions.) |
