Palestinian Journalist Dying For Dignity & Human Rights

Mohammed al-Qeq is a Palestinian journalist, husband, son and father of two. He is about to die a slow, painful death, shackled to an Israeli hospital bed.

Al-Qeq is entering his 94^th day of hunger strike in protest at being allegedly tortured and detained indefinitely, without charge or trial, by the Israeli military. From what can be discerned thus far, his only crime is that of being a Palestinian journalist.

Amnesty International has called on Israeli authorities to release al-Qeq unless he is charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and tried in proceedings adhering to international standards.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has expressed concern that al-Qeq has been on hunger strike longer than any other Palestinian detainee or any of the participants in 1981 protest strikes by IRA prisoners held by Britain in Northern Ireland. Ten of the Irish hunger strikers died, the longest lasted 73 days.

Reporters Without Borders and the European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah, have also raised concerns over Israel’s use of administrative detention (detaining indefinitely without charge or trial) and called for al-Qeq’s release.

Writhing in agony at deaths untimely door, Mohammed al Qeq cries out, “Let me hear my son’s voice, please God”. But his dying wish has been denied by Israeli authorities.

With human rights groups highlighting the inhumane treatment of al-Qeq, it should have made international headlines, but it didn’t and still doesn’t. Journalists normally look out for each other and show solidarity when colleagues are targeted.

Less than two years ago, the BBCs head of news, James Harding, staged a protest and a minutes silence with the hash tag, “Journalism is not a crime”.

Harding leveraged his position, rightly, to influence the fate of three Al Jezeera journalists arrested in Eqypt. In his speech prior to the silence, Harding asserted that the treatment of the journalists was unjust and designed to intimidate journalists and inhibit free speech.

Why has Mohammed al-Qeq’s three month ordeal, for the apparent crime of being a journalist, not warranted Harding’s deprecation? Perhaps a clue lies in Harding’s comments as editor of The Times, which were reported in the Jewish Chronicle in 2011, “I am pro-Israel. I believe in the state of Israel…I would have a real problem if I had been coming to a paper with a history of being anti-Israel. And, of course, Rupert Murdoch is pro-Israel”.

Accusations of BBC bias favouring Israel are not new. Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent said, “We have become used to the fact that, in the BBC newsroom, an Israeli life is worth the lives of an infinite number of Palestinian”.  

In 2009, the BBC refused to broadcast an emergency humanitarian appeal in aid of Palestinian children, claiming it would “breach impartiality guidelines”, to the chagrin of many employees. Yet, when the BBC’s then head of television, Danny Cohen, signed a letter criticising a cultural boycott of Israel last year, it wasn’t deemed impartial.

The media’s abandonment of one of its own is brought brutally into focus by the fact that, while the British government made headlines banning BDS last week, Al Qeq’s plight was airbrushed out of the picture.

150 universities and citizens around the world launched the annual Israeli apartheid week in London on Monday. Rabbi David Goldberg of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue said, “When settlers walk on one side of the road of the road and Palestinians have to walk on another and when settlers are governed by Israeli law and Palestinians are governed by military law, you are talking about apartheid”.

Whether it's Jews in the Holocaust, black Africans in Sudan or Palestinians in Gaza, when it comes to oppression and human rights, we must not remain silent.

If brand Israel wants to improve its’ international standing, it could start by showing Mohammed Al-Qeq mercy before it’s too late. As for the media’s shameful abandonment of a colleague, I am minded of the words of the legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, "The more complicated are the issues and the more sophisticated are the ways to disguise the truth, the more aggressive our search for truth must be, and the more offensive we are sure to be to some. So be it”.