Fighting The Light

By: emil1369

Aug 10 2010

Category: Photojournalism, Security, Society

3 Comments

Haaretz correspondent Haim Levinson, taken down by a soldier, after refusing to heed their (stupid and incoherent) orders, and grabbing his own phone from the hands of an officer who took it in order to delete photos of himself. Needless to say, he had no right to take the phone, or delete the photos, even if he didn’t like it so much.
And Haim only took his photo after he wouldn’t identify himself properly.

It’s just another event, in a very long and tiresome chain of events that show that the armed forces’ (including all security personnel, police, mall guards) attitude towards the press is steadily detiriorating and is surely following the footsteps of darker, less “Western” regimes.
We are targeted on a daily basis, our press card is a scarlet letter that I personally try to hide, our cameras are police evidence, our profession a source of scorn and ridicule, and in many ways we are less privileged than an ordinary citizen. At any point of friction between civilians and security, the press are targeted first, denied access, pushed to the ground, constantly threatened and abused verbally. We are the easiest to deal with, because we have no interest in fighting the police and we have a lot to lose.
And after denying access to Gaza during Cast Lead, they saw that it was good. Now we’re denied access in the middle of Jerusalem, in some events.
Who knows what comes next? Maybe the picture offers a glimpse of the sad future that lies ahead.