By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

EAST JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – An Israeli District Court has sentenced two Palestinian journalists to two months in jail and six months of probation for reporting on the Israeli ground invasion in January 2009.  The pair was accused of violating Israel’s censorship laws, though some supporters of the journalists allege they were jailed because they work for an Iranian television station.

Khodr Shahine, a correspondent for Iran’s Arabic language station Al-Alam, and Mohammed Sarhan, a producer for Al-Alam, were accused of reporting on the military invasion nearly two hours before the Israeli government cleared the operation for press coverage on January 3. 

Israel rarely enforces its censorship laws, even though all accredited journalists have to sign a censorship form that requires them to clear any sensitive security information with a military censor before releasing that information.  The laws were widely ignored during Israel’s 2006 campaign in Lebanon, though no journalists were prosecuted.  The fact that Shahine and Sarhan’s sentencing came down in the same week that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in Iran has fueled suspicions that the pair’s imprisonment was actually motivated by Israeli-Iranian political tensions.

Reporters Without Borders condemned Israel’s imprisonment of the Palestinian journalists as inextricably tied to Ahmadinejad’s reelection.

“Journalists should not be hostages to geopolitical developments,” read a statement from the press freedom organization.

Fares Sarafandy, the Al-Alam bureau chief in Ramallah, said Shahine and Sarhan were just doing their jobs.

“They reported what they saw, namely that tanks were beginning to move,” said Sarafandy.  “They didn’t say the invasion had started.  At heart, this issue is about Israel and Iran.”

For more information, please see:

The National – Israel Jails Two TV Journalists – 18 June 2009

Reporters Without Borders – Palestinian Journalists Working for Iranian TV Station Get Two Months in Jail from Israeli Court – 16 June 2009

World Bulletin – Israel Jails Palestinian Journalists for Gaza Invasion Report – 16 June 2009

Ha’aretz – Two East Jerusalem Journalists Jailed for Reporting for Iran – 15 June 2009

Ma’an News Agency – Palestinian Journalists Jailed for Violating Censorship During Gaza Invasion – 14 June 2009