Israel Apologizes for Humiliating Treatment of Turkish Journalists

YERUSHALAYIM

Three Turkish journalists who complained of humiliating treatment at the hands of security personnel while covering an event in Israel this week received apologies from Israeli officials, The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday.

In a written complaint, economy editor of the Daily Sabah Seyma Eraz gave a detailed account of how she and her colleagues were singled out without explanation and subjected to invasive physical searches and having their cameras taken apart for inspection while Japanese journalists with technical equipment entered unchallenged.

The incident took place at Cyber Week 2017, held in Tel Aviv University. Eraz, along with Kenan Ozcan and Emre İzkübarlas from Fox Turkey, had been invited by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to attend the event.

“I have been in many countries,” Eraz wrote, “attending many meetings attended by PMs and Presidents, but I have never been humiliated like this [in] my entire life.”

“I still just cannot believe such a behavior at a period Turkey and Israel trying to normalize relations[sic],” she wrote in closing. “We are so sad to have experienced this. At the end of the day, we are just journalists.”
The complaint was delivered to Israeli Minister of Communication Ayoub Kara, who subsequently invited the journalists to his office, where he apologized for the incident.

A representative from the prime minister’s office and the event’s head of security also offered their apologies.

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