Israel partially lifts gag on journalist detention

Ma'an
Israel lifted a months-long censorship order Thursday, confirming for the first time that an Israeli journalist has been held under secret house arrest for almost four months amid allegations she leaked classified military information to an Israeli newspaper.

After weeks of exposure in the foreign media and local blogosphere, despite the all-encompassing gag order, authorities announced that Anat Kam, 23, a contributor to the Web site Walla!, was placed under house arrest on 15 December in Tel Aviv pending trial on treason and spying charges.

Prosecutors claim she copied hundreds of classified military documents during her mandatory army service years earlier. Two of these documents are believed to have inspired a November 2008 investigation by Israeli reporter Uri Blau detailing Israeli army assassination procedures. The report, published in Haaretz Magazine, accused the army of intentionally killing noncombatants.

Eitan Lehman, one of Kam's lawyers, told Ma'an that "no harm" came from these articles, no matter how Blau got the documents, rejecting that the state attorney is handling the case as if it were espionage.

Blau's articles "were fully approved by the Israeli army censor," Lehman said in a phone interview. "So if army censorship determined that there is nothing wrong with these items being published, what is the offense?"

"It's very important to understand that no harm came to the State of Israel," the attorney insisted.

"I really hope the state attorney changes its position, not only as it does not serve national security, but because it harms Israel as a free and democratic state," Lehman said, adding that and any revelation that the army broke the law "only improved the national security as I see it."

Blau's investigation revealed documents indicating that high-ranking officers in Israel's army approved in advance the killing of Palestinians who were defined as "wanted." Assassination plans were approved even when it was possible to arrest the Palestinians, and in which prior written approval was given for incidental harm to occur to innocent bystanders during these operations, the article alleged.

Ma'an revealed last Thursday that Blau, fearing arrest, has been in hiding abroad since December, around the same time Israeli authorities seized his computer and placed Kam under house arrest. Haaretz says the reporter will remain in London until it reaches an agreement with Israel's Shin Bet internal security service.

After the removal of the gag, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reiterated that the case hinges on documents that raise "grave suspicions" that the Israeli military conducted assassination operations in the West Bank under the guise of arrest operations. This, in contrast to official Israeli statements, would have been in violation of a 2006 Israeli High Court of Justice ruling. .

........B'Tselem has collected research indicating that soldiers in the West Bank often operate as though they were on assassination, not arrest, operations.

RSF condemns 'absurd' ban

According to a copy of the secret gag order obtained by the US-based blogger Richard Silverstein, Judge Einat Ron of the Petah Tikvah magistrate court signed off on a 90-day extension requested by Sa'ar Shapira of the Israeli police on 4 January 2010. The first was approved on 8 October 2009, meaning the Israeli press was prevented in advance from reporting on Kam's detention......

..................... The Independent was the first foreign correspondent to report the story from Jerusalem. The move was significant because most international reporters also sign an agreement with the censor before they are granted Israeli press credentials. [Also, it appears that a great many international reporters have ties to the Israeli military.] Based in the Palestinian territories, Ma'an is neither a party to this agreement nor bound by the gag order.   Full story

Full text: State of Israel vs Anat Kam