Published on 25 August 2009
26 August 2009 - West Bank radio station’s arbitrary closure by Israeli soldiers
3 August 2009 - Review board refuses to commute Syrian journalist’s jail sentence
7 July 2009 - Release of Al Jazeera journalists held by Israelis
Reporters Without Borders deplores the Israeli government’s attempts to pressure the Swedish government into condemning a 17 August article in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet that accused the Israeli army of allowing body organs to be harvested from Palestinians killed by its soldiers.
“Regardless of the article’s content and although we understand the public outcry if has triggered in Israel, the Israeli authorities must refrain from asking their Swedish counterparts to intervene,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Aftonbladet alone is responsible for the articles it publishes. The Swedish government is not responsible.”
The press freedom organisation added: “If the Israeli government thinks Israel has been defamed, it can take the matter to the courts. But seeking non-judicial sanctions against the journalist who wrote the article is not the solution.”
The offending article, accusing the Israeli authorities of turning a blind eye to trafficking in organs taken from dead Palestinians, was by reporter Donald Boström. It was based on an interview with the relatives of a young Palestinian killed in May 1992, whose body was taken by helicopter to Israel and was returned a few days later. The victim’s brother said he was convinced that organs were removed while the body was in Israel.
In a 20 August statement, Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak called the article “false and outrageous” and “anti-semitic.” Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, issued a statement the same day saying that she understood the reaction of the government, media and public opinion in Israel, adding that both Swedes and Israelis found the article “shocking and appalling.”
But in Stockholm, the Swedish foreign ministry did not follow suit. Foreign minister Carl Bildt disowned the ambassador’s remarks and stressed his government’s commitment to freedom of expression.
At a news conference in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik on 21 August, Bildt said: “As a member of the Swedish government, acting on the Swedish constitution, I have to respect freedom of the speech, irrespective of the personal views that I might have.”
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted angrily to the Swedish government’s refusal to criticise Aftonbladet. On 22 August, his spokesman accused the Swedish authorities of using freedom of expression as an easy excuse for not condemning anti-semitism. After his weekly cabinet meeting on 23 August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We’re not asking the Swedish government for an apology, we’re asking for their condemnation.”
As a reprisal, Daniel Seaman, the head of Israel’s Government Press Office, has refused to issue press credentials to two other Aftonbladet journalists. Boström meanwhile reports that he has received two letters with death threats since the article came out.
All this diplomatic tension has erupted just 10 days before an official visit to Israel by the foreign minister of Sweden, which has held the European Union’s rotating presidency since 1 July.
Adel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen name Kareem Amer, was arrested on 6 November 2006, for articles published on his blog .
