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World

By HANS LEBRECHT

Israel’s security services April 27 arrested
Michael Schwartz, editor-in-chief of the two
outlawed Organs of the Nitzotz Party,
Derekh Hanitotz, published in Hebrew,
and Tariq A-Sharaara, the Arabic language
publication. Schwartz is a leading member
of the Hadash electoral front, in which the

Mmunist Party of Israel is a major
er.

Three other members of the editorial
board of these papers had already been
detained and are being held in total isola-
Hon. Ribhi El-Aruri was arrested even
before the Papers were closed several weeks
480 and has already been held under admi-
nistrative detention for six months.

Administrative detention means impri-
sonment under the emergency regulations
passed in 1945 by the former British colon-
ialist tulers; they are still in force in Israel.
Security authorities are not required to give
an explanation or reason for the detention;
no legal indictments or charges, or the pres-
Snce of a judge or court of law, is necessary
for such detentions in the name of national
security,

Two weeks ago another members of the
editorial board, Kob Ben-Efrat, was
arrested. At the beginning of this week, his
former wife, Roni Ben-Efrat, was arrested
in Tel Aviy’s airport while accompanying
two teenagers who were leaving for an
Israeli-Palestinian solidarity meeting in
Italy.

The Security authorities are keeping all of
them in isolation. No visitors, not even their
attorneys, are allowed to see them.

While Schwartz was being arrested,
security people ransacked the paper’s edi-
torial offices in the Israeli part of Jerusalem
and confiscated much of its files and printed
material. The bookkeeper was taken for
interrogations, but was released after a few
hours.

Government spokespersons claimed, in
press statements, that the Nitzotz papers
Were receiving financial assistance from Na-
eef Hawatme’s Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, which Israel’s ruling
circles have outlawed as an organization of
so-called terrorists.

In truth, closing the papers and detaining
members of their editorial boards has been
widely viewed as an act of political revenge
and as Suppression of the freedom of the
press. Both papers became well known for
their extensive and truthful reporting on the
situation in the occupied territories, and for
keeping many foreign correspondents
informed, especially since the start of the
Intafada, the popular uprising of the Pales-
man people. The editorial board and lead-
ership of Nitzotz have declared that there is
no basis to the charge that they are receiving
financial help from a Palestinian organiza-
tion; they say this fabrication is aimed at
misleading public opinion.

In another development involving limits
on press freedoms, the government press
office Suspended the accreditation of two
foreign correspondents and confiscated
their press cards. The two are Glen Frankel,
Jerusalem bureau chief of the Washington
Post, and Martin Fletcher, who is working
in Israel for NBC television. Both were
accused, without any hearing, of violating
censorship rules by transmitting reports
about an army spokesman’s admission that
Khalil Abu-Wasir (Abu Jihad) had been
assassinated in Tunis by Israeli comman-
dos. Frankel and Fletcher have been barred
from taking part in any press conferences or
briefings by government officials, and their
mail boxes at the press centre have been
closed.

At its April 27 Annual General Assem-
bly, the Foreign Press Association adopted
a resolution sharply condemning the
government’s arbitrary action in the Fran-
kel and Fletcher cases as a dangerous
precedent and demanded that it be revoked:

The association represents all 300 foreign
correspondents residing in Israel. The reso-
lution also calls on the association’s newly-
elected board to take action, such as a
protest by all foreign correspondents work-
ing in Israel, if authorities do not rescind
their punitive actions against the two jour-

nalists. aoe
All this comes on top of heaving infrin-

gements on freedom of the press and politi-

cal expression by the Israeli occupation
authorities against the press organs pub-
lished in Arab East Jerusalem and the other
occupied territories. More than a dozen

Palestinian journalists and writers are

imprisoned in Israeli prisons or detention
camps.

| Israeli security closing press opponents —

Palestinian youth confront occupation forces.

World News

British N-test
victim wins

An ex-soldier in the British Army has
won the right to sue the British govern-
ment for damages resulting from a nuclear
test. The ruling by Britain’s five law Lords
last week is considered historic, and may
have implications as well for Australian
and U.S. veterans exposed to similar
nuclear tests. :

Mervyn Pearce, 50, formerly a lance
corporal (private first class) in the Royal
Engineers, was exposed to radiation in
1957 and 1958 while N-tests were con-
ducted on Christmas Island in the Pacific
Lawyers for Pearse showed that service-
men were not warned about radiation
danger, swam in water contaminated with
radiation and ate radiation contaminated
fruit. Pearce later developed leukemia. The
Law Lords dismissed appeals by the
defence secretary and Ministry of Defence
that the British monarch is “immune”
from such law suits.

Demand N-free
Indian Ocean

The Indian ocean should be free of war-
ships armed with nuclear weapons. This
was one of the major conclusions at an
international conference held last week in
the Madagascar capital of Antananarivo.
Delegations from 34 countries denounced
the expansion of the Pentagon’s nuclear
military base on Diego Garcia Island in
the mid-Indian Ocean. They expressed
determination to work for the convening
of a United Nations-sponsored conference
on the Indian Ocean in 1989.

The Antananarivo conference was
jointly sponsored by the World Peace
Council, the Afro-Asian People’s Solidar-
ity Organization and the Malagasy Peace

Committee. World Peace Council: presi-
dent Romesh Chandra told the closing
session of the conference that “‘we are now
at a turning-point in history” because of
the INF treaty, accords on Afghanistan
and other developments. Chandra noted
that the conference voted for a nuclear-
free Indian Ocean and African continent.

Peace women voyage
from Athens

Coretta Scott King and Margaret
Papandreou were among the passengers
on the ship Nepture which left Piraeus, the
port of Athens, on Friday. The passengers
on the ship were all delegates to an interna-
tional women’s conference called by the
peace organization Women for a Mean-
ingful Summit. The conference on board
the Nepture was scheduled to last three
days and includes women from Greece,
the Soviet Union, the U.S. and several
other countries.

King spoke at an Athens news confer-
ence Friday and said Soviet and U.S. lead-
ers must not miss the historic opportunity
to reverse the arms race when they meet at
the May 29 Moscow summit.

Linder family
sues contras

The family of Benjamin Linder, the 23-
year-old U.S. engineer who was killed in’
Nicaragua last year, have launched a suit
against the U.S.-backed contras for the
death of their son.

The suit names three top contra
leaders — Adolfo Calero, Aristides San-
chez and Indalecio Rodriguez — and the
top military commander, Enrique Ber-
mudez, as defendants and charges that the
contra leaders ordered the ambush, tor-
ture and execution of Benjamin Linder.

Linder’s parents, Dr. David Linder and
Elizabeth Linder, visited Vancouver in
March as part of their cross-country
speaking tour and described the contra
ambush that killed their son and two of his
Nicaraguan co-workers as they surveyed
the site for a hydro-electric plant to supply
power to a northern Nicaraguan village.
Linder was wounded by shrapnel from
grenades in the initial attack and while
laying helpless and immobile on the
ground was shot in the head at point-
blank range.

The suit seeks $49 million in compensa-
tory and punitive damages. Elizabeth
Linder has vowed that “every dollar we
receive will be used to build schools and
hospitals (in Nicaragua). We want to help
fix what our government has destroyed.”

The one-year anniversary of Linder’s
death was honoured in San Francisco this
year when the mayor declared April 28 as
“Ben Linder Day.” City officials, peace
and religious leaders participated in a
memorial.

Harry Britt, city supervisor who made
the proclamation for the city said we are
here to “honour the spirit of peace and
justice that Ben Linder represented.”

Armenian TV in
Nagorno-Karabakh

A powerful TV relay station built in “a
very short time” last week enabled resi-
dents of the Nagorno-Karabakh Auto-
nomous Region of Soviet Azerbaijan to
receive Armenian TV. The majority of the
people in the region are Armenians, but
previously they could only get Azerbaijan
TV. Construction of the TV relay station
was part of the plans laid down by the
Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet
government to speed up socio-economic
development of the region between 1988
and 1995.

Pacific Tribune, May 11, 1988 « 9