#Palestine - Israel frees detained Al Jazeera journalist - 'Treated like dogs'

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Israel frees detained Al Jazeera journalist

David Poort released from 18 hours in custody after covering activists' "flytilla" campaign to highlight Gaza blockade. Last Modified: 10 Jul 2011 11:53

Hundreds of activists have been prevented from boarding flights to Israel from Europe [AFP] Al Jazeera journalist David Poort, who was detained on his arrival at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Friday while covering the Gaza "flytilla" campaign, has been released after 18 hours in Israeli detention. Poort, who was released at around 5pm [local time] on Saturday, was documenting the campaign in which activists attempted to fly into Israel to highlight the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The decision to use air travel was made after Greek authorities prevented vessels from the Gaza Flotilla II from leaving Greece's ports. Poort had boarded the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv along with about two dozen Belgian activists; many of them young university students who had come from Brussels to escape tight security screening there. The flight had originated in Paris and Poort said that a number of French activists had been prevented from boarding the plane there. On arrival at the Israeli airport, Poort and the activists were separated and sent for security screening. Anyone who officials thought was part of the "flytilla" campaign was whisked to a police bus that was standing by at the airport. Poort said the round-up was arbitrary and random and based on mere suspicion. He said two young tourists from the Netherlands, who had nothing to do with the pro-Palestinian groups, were wrongly detained. Men and women were separated and stripped of any electronic equipment. 'Treated like dogs' Poort said: "The bus was very crammed and 10 men were packed in about three and half square feet area. "It was claustrophobic, infested with cockroaches, hot and stuffy and they kept us in the bus for six hours. We were treated like dogs." The activists on the bus were then driven off to Bir el-saba in southern Israel. After a two-hour drive they arrived at Ela prison. "We were put in a tiny room and were individually questioned by prison security," Poort said. "Sixteen guys were jammed in one cell." The entire group was offered the opportunity to meet with a psychologist. Poort said the group were questioned for the first time only when they reached the prison and that the authorities appeared to be surprised to see a journalist among the group. Authorities then asked everybody to sign a paper promising they would refrain from holding any protests in Israel. It was also a deportation form. Among those detained at the prison was a 14-year-old girl, who had joined the group along with her father. The girl was temporarily separated from her father while at the jail. Hundreds of other activists had already been prevented from boarding flights to Israel from Europe after the Israeli government gave a list of activists it deemed were "security risks" to airline authorities.