Mar 31, 2013 | ||
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM , (SANA) - Dozens of Palestinians participating in a march marking the occasion of Land Day on Saturday expelled the Qatari al-Jazeera Channel's staff from Sakhnin City in the occupied Palestinian territories of 1948 in protest of its hostile and provocative follow- up of Syria's file. The Palestinians expressed rejection of al-Jazeera covering Land Day, annually celebrated by Palestinians to emphasize their full right in the occupied Palestinian territories, objecting to the channel's lack of integrity and objectivity in its coverage of the Syrian crisis. Addressing the al-Jazeera staff, they chanted "Out …Out the Syrian Land is Free," the thing which forced them to leave the march at once. Hoisting the Syrian and Palestinian flags, the participants expressed their full support to Syria, stressing that the Palestinian-Syrian cohesion and rejection of Israeli-international imperialistic conspiracy against Syria should be the title of Land Day. This is not the first time that al-Jazeera staffs have been expelled by angered protestors, as Tunisians repelled al-Jazeera Mubashar (Live) staff two weeks ago during an attempt to cover a protest held on the occasion of marking 40 day after the assassination of the opposition struggler, Shukri Baleid. R. Milhem / H. Said Al Jazeera reporter chased off at Land Day protest |
| Land Day protest in Sakhnin, March 30, 2013. أهالي سخنين في فلسطين المحتلة : جزيرة برا برا.. الأرض السورية حرة |
Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Elias Karam and his crew was chased by a crowd of supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad at the Land Day protest in Sakhnin in the Galilee on Saturday. Karam took cover in a local restaurant until he was able to be spirited out shortly after.
Members of the crowd, some of them carrying Syrian flags, accused Al Jazeera of being one-sided, and a “propaganda outlet” that supports the Syrian rebels.
Both while the reporter was inside the restaurant and afterwards, scuffles broke out between pro-regime and anti-Assad groups, with some beating each other with sticks. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed and the crowd cleared out. A few people were lightly wounded and treated at the scene.
At no point did police arrive during the fracas, which lasted a little over half an hour.
The fights took place as protesters commemorated Land Day, which marks the 1976 protests against the government’s land appropriations, during which six Israeli Arabs were killed by Israeli forces.