One year after I was beaten

JUNE 26, 2008, is a day I will never forget. For the events of that day irrevocably changed my life.

That day, I was detained, interrogated, strip-searched and tortured while attempting to return home from a European speaking tour, which culminated in independent American journalist Dahr Jamil and I sharing the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize in London--an award given to journalists who expose propaganda which often masks egregious human rights abuses.

I want to address the denials from Israel and the inaccurate reporting by a few journalists, in addition to requesting that the state of Israel acknowledge what it did to me, prosecute the members of the Shin Bet responsible for it, and put in place procedures that protect other journalists from such treatment.

Since 2003, I've been the voice to the voiceless in the besieged Gaza Strip for a number of publications and news programs ranging from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to the BBC, Morgenbladet in Norway as well as Democracy Now! These stories exposed a carefully crafted fiction continuing control and exploitation of 5 million people. Their impact, coupled with the reporting of others, served to change public opinion in the United States and Europe concerning the dynamics of Israel and its occupation of Palestine.

After receiving the Martha Gellhorn prize, I returned home through the Allenby Bridge Crossing in the occupied West Bank between Jordan and Israel. It was here I was detained, interrogated and tortured for several hours by Shin Bet and border officers. When it appeared I may have been close to death, an ambulance was called to transport me to a hospital. From that day, my life has been a year of continued medical treatments, pain--and a search for justice.

Lisa Dvir from the Israeli Airport Authority (IAA), the agency responsible for controlling Israel's borders, in an June 29 article by Mel Frykberg for the Inter Press Service, stated, "[T]he IAA was neither aware of Omer's journalist credentials nor of his coordination."

The statement is wholly inaccurate and impossible on two counts. First, because I'm Palestinian, I am unable to enter Israel or leave Gaza, even through the Rafah border with Egypt, without Israeli permission--something quite difficult to get. Each time I've left Gaza for speaking tours required substantial lobbying and political maneuvering by several governments.

In 2006, it was the American government who ultimately won my visa. In 2007, the Dutch Parliament invited me back to speak to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and in 2008, when it was announced I won the Martha Gellhorn Prize, several European countries requested Israel grant me a visa.

But it was MP Hans Van Baalen of the Netherlands who, with great effort, secured and guaranteed my passage out of Gaza and Israel, as well as the return for both the 2007 and 2008 trips, on the condition I travel and be escorted by members of the Dutch Embassy in Tel Aviv while within Israel or the occupied West Bank.

Therefore, I was under diplomatic escort with the full knowledge of the Israeli government when I arrived at Allenby on June 26. In fact, Israeli security had blocked my re-entry for four days, causing me to miss a family wedding and wait in Jordan.

SECONDLY, DVIR'S claim that the IAA didn't know I was a journalist is proved false by the actions of the Shin Bet and border police. During the interrogation, an Israeli security personnel searching my belongings repeatedly asked, "Where's the money from the prize, Mohammed?" The prize is only given to journalists. Not only were they fully aware I am a journalist, they knew exactly how much I received, for what and where.

Dvir further perjured herself when she claimed, "We would like to know who Omer spoke to in regard to receiving coordination to pass through Allenby. We offer journalists a special service when passing through our border crossings, and had we known about his arrival this would not have happened."

Her denial shocked a Dutch diplomat in Tel Aviv who had confirmed with the state permission for me to cross on June 26. Again, I was traveling under diplomatic escort and when I asked to phone the escort--waiting on the other side of the terminal--Shin Bet's response was that they knew and didn't care.

While not admitting that the interrogation and torture took place, Divr then dismissed any actions by the Shin Bet as out of her department's control: "I'm not aware of the events that followed his detention, and we are not responsible for the behavior of the Shin Bet."

But the Israeli Airport Authority, Divr's department, like most port authorities, is responsible for border security and those who enforce that security in Israel are members of the army and the Shin Bet.

Unfortunately Dvir's diversions were just the beginning. In the days following my detention and torture, the Israeli Government Press Office acknowledged that despite traveling under diplomatic escort, I was searched "due to suspicion that he had been in contact with hostile elements and had been asked by them to deliver items to Judea and Samaria (Occupied West Bank)." This has been mentioned and quoted in different papers. Like everyone else entering, my bags were x-rayed and cleared multiple times, excluding the possibility I was carrying some type of contraband. And I was traveling in the Dutch Embassy's car directly to Erez crossing with Gaza, as communicated to the Israeli authorities. There was zero possibility of me delivering "items" to anyone.

CONFRONTED WITH the medical reports and injuries, including bruised ribs, Israeli officials told the BBC on July 1, 2008 that, "He lost balance and fell, for reasons unknown to us." Another officer suggested, "Mr. Omer had a nervous breakdown due to the high temperature."

Despite the attempts at denials, the emergency medical technician who sat in the back of the ambulance with me reported, "We noted fingerprints on his neck and chest," the type of bruising caused by excessive force often used in forensics to identify an attacker.

When Associated Press (AP) reporter Karin Laub called me on my cell phone for an interview after my ordeal, I detailed how I was stripped and held at gunpoint. Her reply? "Go on," she stated. "This is normal about what we hear happening at Ben Gurion Airport . It's nothing new."

Torture, strip searches and holding award-winning journalists or any other human beings at gun-point is normal at Israel 's largest airport? Ms. Laub's apathy continued. In her article for the Associated Press on June 29 she wrote that she interviewed "Dr. Husseini, who claims there were no signs of physical trauma."

There's only one problem with this. This Dr. Husseini never treated me. The Minister of Health in Ramallah confirmed that Husseini never made any such statement to the AP reporter. For reasons known only to her, Ms. Laub appears to have fabricated this comment and purposely ignored the medical reports and the statements by the attending paramedics--counter to journalistic ethics and standards upheld by the Associated Press. Despite this, no independent investigation took place.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem correspondent for the Los Angles Times, Ashraf Khalil, conducted an investigation into my case and noted in his article on November 3, 2008, that my medical records describe: "Tenderness on the anterior part of the neck and upper back mainly along the right ribs moderate to severe pain," and "by examination the scrotum due to pain varicocele (varicose veins in the spermatic cord) at left side detected and surgery was decided later." Fevers and falls do not cause such distinctive marks. Kicks, punches and beatings do.

Continuing, Khalil explained that:

Paramedic Mahmoud Tararya arrived in a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance and said he found Omer semiconscious with bruises on his neck and chest. Tararya said Israeli security officers were asking Omer to sign "some sort of form written in Hebrew. The paramedic said he intervened, separated Omer from the soldiers and loaded him into the ambulance, where he remained semiconscious for most of the trip to a hospital."

Khalil notes in his article that Richard Falk, the UN human rights official, wrote to Verhagen, the Minster of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and stated: "I have checked out Mr. Omer's credibility and narrative of events, and I find them fully credible and accurate."

Recovering mentally and physically from torture and interrogation is far from easy. This should not happen to anyone. My objective is for my case to focus attention on universal human rights, the right of freedom of expression and freedom of movement. There are places in this world where these freedoms do not exist. Israel insists it is not one of those places, but both the government and the complicity of individual journalists in covering up what they did to me prove otherwise.

Ironically, the day the Shin Bet chose to detain, interrogate and torture me--June 26--is the date set aside by human rights groups as the International Day Against Torture.

First published at Agence Global.