30421: HaitiAnalysis (News) MINUSTAH Intimidates Journalist on World Press Freedom Day (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From:  haitianalysis-at-gmail-dot-com



MINUSTAH Intimidates Journalist on World Press Freedom Day
http://www.haitianalysis.com/2007/5/8/minustah-intimidates-journalist-on-world-press-freedom-day

By: Judith Scherr - HaitiAnalysis.com

On his way to cover a MINUSTAH-police operation in Cité Soleil's Little
Haiti neighborhood, freelance reporter Jean Ristil, who was riding his
motorcycle, was stopped by a group of Brazilian soldiers who surrounded him
and pointed their guns at him.

"Three of them grabbed me and twisted my arm" Ristil said through a
translator. They held him by his neck and took him inside a nearby school,
which has been transformed by MINUSTAH into a military base inside Cité
Soleil.

When they took him inside the school, they saw he was wearing press
identification around his neck.

"It was Thursday May 3, the World Day of Press Freedom," Ristil said.

Inside, he saw somebody in handcuffs. MINUSTAH troops asked him if the man
were a bandit. "I told them I didn't know him," Ristil said. Then he saw
that they started kicking the man.

They made Ristil face the wall and spread his arms apart to search him. "One
of the soldiers was going to hit me in the back, but another stopped him
saying, 'No he's a journalist.'"

After about 30 minutes they brought in another guy who had been beaten. "I
saw them hit him with a gun," Ristil said. The man was wearing a badge that
showed he worked as security at the Chapi Clinic. The man asked the soldiers
to loosen his handcuffs because they were hurting him and they replied that
if he asked again they would beat him.

Meanwhile, people outside were calling for his release. Ristil was able to
leave, but by that time the soldiers had damaged parts of his motorcycle,
while attempting to search it.

Ristil didn't report the arrest directly to authorities, but went on the
radio to let people know what had happened.

Two times in recent weeks before the arrest, he was riding his motorcycle
and a UN tank put on its brakes suddenly just behind him in an effort, he
thinks, to intimidate him.

"Right now I'm very afraid." If no one were around, he says he could be
seriously hurt.

Ristil does freelance work for HIP, the Black Commentator, Radio Lakou in
New York, Associated Press, and HaitiAnalysis.com among other news outlets.

Ristil, along with an American journalist, was arrested and briefly thrown
in jail by SWAT members of the Haitian police force in September 2005 after
they received a tip that police might try to plant weapons at the church of
Father Gerald Jean-Juste.

In November of 2005 Ristil was again arrested but by the Central
Headquarters of the Judicial Police (DCPJ). He recalls being beaten after he
refused to hand over photographs that he had snapped showing the results of
violent raids carried out by the Haitian police and UN forces in Cité
Soleil.

Freelance journalist Jean Ristil recounted the incident to Bay Area
journalist Judith Scherr by telephone through a translator on May 6. Photo
by Jean Ristil.