Is The MSM Hiding Attacks On Women Journalists?
By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy on April 9, 2011 at 8:00 PM in Foreign Affairs, Gaza, Hamas, Human Rights, Media Bias, Media Handling of Story, Middle East, Misogyny, Muslims & Arabs, Women
* Bumped Up *
Again? So it would seem. This time, it is in Palestine by Hamas Security officers. But I bet you haven’t heard a word about it, have you? Had it not been for Phyllis Chesler, I wouldn’t have known, either.
In Chesler’s excellent post, “Arab Spring: Male-on-Female Atrocities In Gaza Disappeared By The Western Media,” she details what eight, that is 8, women journalists endured while trying to cover – get this – a Unity rally (more on that below).
Ironic, ain’t it?
Anyway, one would have thought after what happened to Lara Logan, and a number of other women journalists in Egypt recently, that maybe, just maybe, the MSM would be better about covering these sorts of attacks. And one would be wrong:
Last month, at least eight Muslim Palestinian female journalists were physically beaten with clubs, iron chairs, and fists, stabbed, and tortured with electric shocks by male Hamas security forces in the Gaza strip. Their cell phones, laptops, documents, and cameras were confiscated. They were also arrested. Some were forced to sign a document “pledging to refrain from covering such events again.”
The “events” were a series of pro-unity rallies organized by Palestinian youth on Facebook (!) which demanded an end to the dispute between Islamist Hamas and a presumably more moderate Fatah.So much for the Arab “spring,” and the purposefully misguided Western (and these heroically naïve youthful demonstrators’) belief that the increasingly well organized Islamist Middle East will really rise up on behalf of human rights and women’s rights—without which there can be no democracy.[snip]
This whole “Spring” concept is just ridiculous on the face of it, as Larry Johnson wrote about so poignantly in, “Arab Spring Or Middle East Firestorm?” so no reason for me to reinvent that wheel. Suffice it to say, it is a whopper of a misnomer for what is going on in the Middle East.
Back to Chesler’s point:
The mainstream media did not cover this male-on-female atrocity in Gaza. In the English-speaking world, only a handful of journalists, including two Israelis, one writing in the Jerusalem Post, one writing at Big Peace, covered it. A few smaller newspapers in America and an English-language Egyptian paper did so as well.To be fair, Reuters had an article (UK edition) which featured their own agency in Gaza having being attacked by “armed men.” Later on, we learn that these “armed men” were Hamas officials. And near the end of the piece, we also learn that Hamas also beat “photographers and camera men.” They do not mention female journalists, nor do they give us their names.
Slate also had an article about how Fatah is undermining Islamism on the West Bank. Parenthetically, later on, they mention that Hamas raided the offices of Reuters and destroyed equipment. They do not mention the attack on the Palestinian women journalists.
[...]
One of the recently beaten, tortured, and arrested Palestinian female journalists, Asma Al-Ghoul, is someone whom I first interviewed in 2009. Al-Ghoul is a secular feminist and a journalist who has written brave articles about honor killings on the West Bank and in Gaza. She asked me to edit and publish some of her work and I proudly did so. Al-Ghoul has been harassed and arrested by Hamas before. Why? Ostensibly because she dared to laugh, wear jeans on the beach, and entered the sea, fully clothed, to swim. These were her crimes—plus the fact that she was a single woman (divorced, actually), out in public, not wearing hijab, and relaxing on the beach with—unbelievably—male friends. [snip] (Click here to read the rest of this piece.)
Oh, I should add, not only were these women beaten, and had stun guns used on them, but one was literally stabbed in the back. By a member of the Hamas Security force, that is, as this article highlights, Gaza Cops Use ‘Beatings, Stun Guns’ On Women Reporters.
It is remarkable, isn’t it? That these attacks on women journalists are not being covered by the MSM still? Is it because it doesn’t fit the narrative? So it would seem. What a shame that the small window that opened when Lara Logan was brutally assaulted closed so quickly. That is telling in and of itself about our media, about journalism, and about news in general.
These women in Palestine deserve better. They deserve more. They deserve to not have their stories swept under the proverbial rug by their fellow journalists. Their voices deserve to be heard. Hear them now.
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