31 Mar 2002
Ramallah, West Bank - Porn movies and programmes in Hebrew are being broadcast by Israeli troops who have taken over three Palestinian television stations of Ramallah, irate residents of the besieged West Bank town said on Saturday.
The offices of three local television and radio stations were occupied by soldiers on Friday morning, a few hours after tanks and hundreds of troops stormed the town in Israel's biggest offensive against the Palestinian Authority and its leader Yasser Arafat.
The soldiers started broadcasting the porn clips - considered extremely offensive by most Muslims - intermittently on Saturday afternoon from the Al-Watan, Ammwaj, and Al-Sharaq channels, the residents said.
"The pornographic movies started on Al-Watan television at around 03:30," one 34-year-old Palestinian mother named Reema said.
"I have six children at home, they have nowhere to go with what is going on here and can't even watch TV," she said angrily.
"It's not healthy really. I think the Israelis want to mess with our young men's heads," she said.
'Deliberate psychological damage'
Anita, a 52-year-old mother of three children, complained about "the deliberate psychological damage caused by these broadcasts".
"I am furious, these are the people who are shooting at us that also play this disgusting trick on us," she said.
"We are desperate for news and constantly flipping channels and get these terrible pictures instead," adding that videos of the intifada were also shown backwards with "ideal terrorism" written in red across the screen.
"Luckily, there is no electricity in half of Ramallah," she said from her house in east Jerusalem where the channels are also available.
A fourth local station, whose premises were not seized by the army, ran a written message across its screen letting people know it was the Israelis who were behind the graphic scenes.
"Anything currently shown on Al-Watan and other local TV channels has nothing to do with Palestinian programmes but is being broadcast by the Israeli occupation forces, we urge parents to take precautions," the message said.
Israeli military denies allegations
The Israeli military denied that it had anything to do with the pornographic programming and instead blamed the Palestinian leaders.
"The Israeli security forces have no interest in putting pornographic and racist movies on Palestinian television," an army spokesperson said.
"The only reason we are in these buildings and in this city is to fight against terrorists and their infrastructure after giving the Palestinians various chances to [do] it themselves," he said.
Palestinian leader Yasser "Arafat is willing to go low in order to make himself look better in this uncomfortable situation", he said.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nachshon said any such broadcasting was "shameful", but said he was not aware of the Israeli army's involvement.
"I cannot believe that Israeli soldiers would engage in such despicable behaviour," he said. - Sapa-AFP
