Screenshot: Assaulted journalist; Video credit: Honenu
Monday, November 11, 2019, 14:17 On Monday, November 11, Honenu tweeted: The Union of Journalists in Israel demanded a clarification from the Israeli Police concerning a Special Forces (Yassam) policeman who assaulted Yehuda Perl, a journalist with the HaKol HaYehudi news site, in Yitzhar yesterday. Perl was beaten and knocked to the ground while covering last night’s incident at the site [the brutal detention of Neriya Zarog]. The documentation of the assault does not leave any room for doubt.
Honenu also shared a tweet from the Union of Journalists in Israel (translation by Honenu): Special Forces policemen beat Perl as he was on a journalistic assignment, without any justification and in absolute violation of their own police regulations. This was not the first time that Special Forces policemen have acted violently towards journalists in the field and it seems that the police have not been doing what they should to investigate such incidents and to penalize violent policemen to the full extent of the law.
In a letter which we sent this morning to the acting Police Commissioner Major General Moti Cohen, we wrote that “The Union of Journalists strongly condemns the violence used by the Special Forces policemen against the journalist Perl. We expect clarification with regards to the regulations of conduct concerning the communications media and we demand that the police investigate the incident, that the results be transferred to us and that all involved are penalized to the full extent of the law.”