Sunday, March 31 2002 @ 12:47 AM GMT
RAMALLAH, West Bank: Porn movies and programs 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 have told AFP.
The offices of three local television and radio stations were
occupied by soldiers yesterday 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 Palestinians -- intermittently this
afternoon from the Al-Watan, Ammwaj, and Al-Sharaq channels,
the residents said.
"The pornographic movies started on Al-Watan television at
around 3:30 pm," one 34-year-old Palestinian mother named
Reema told AFP.
"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.
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 programs but is
being broadcast by the Israeli occupation forces, we urge
parents to take precautions," the message said.
From Australia’s Sunday Mail