Wednesday, March 07, 2007

This is from the new US State Department report on human rights: "The government [of Lebanon] acknowledged that violent abuse of detainees usually occurred during preliminary investigations conducted at police stations or military installations, in which suspects were interrogated without an attorney. Such abuse occurred despite national laws that prevent judges from accepting confessions extracted under duress. For example, on February 5, according to international human rights organizations, authorities arrested 42 Syrian nationals in the wake of violent protests outside the Danish Embassy in Beirut (see section 2.b.) and allegedly beat some of them in an apparent attempt to force confessions about their involvement in the protests. On February 10, a military court in Beirut ordered their release. No investigations into the abuse were carried out by year's end." Then the report said: "In addition the pan Arab satellite station, New TV, aired several anti-Semitic programs and interviews, including an interview on June 21 with a known Holocaust denier whose interview was introduced by the narrator with never has there been an issue subject to as many contradictions, lies, and exaggerations regarding the number of victims as the issue of the Jewish Holocaust." Can the report tell us what those "several anti-Semitic programs and interviews" were? When? There was one interview that Maria Ma`luf did, that I can remember in which anti-Semitic statements were made. Ma`luf has since left the station and now works for NBN-TV. I also notice that much of the references to Arab TV contained in the report are based not on actual monitoring but on...MEMRI claims.