American Jewish Committee Urges French Court to Enforce Order on Al-Dura Tapes

American Jewish Committee Urges French Court to Enforce Order on Al-Dura Tapes

NEW YORK, Nov. 16/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Jewish Committee is urging a French appellate court to enforce its order compelling release of all original videotape recorded by a France 2 cameraman of reported violent Israeli-Palestinian clashes in a two-day period in Gaza seven years ago.

The state-owned France 2 had reported at the time that a young Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Dura, was killed in those clashes. However, despite the earlier court order, an apparently truncated videotape was presented as evidence yesterday in Paris.

"For years, questions have been raised about the accuracy of media reporting in Gaza -- and very specific and troubling questions have been raised about the facts in the case of Muhammad al-Dura, as broadcast by France 2," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. "Some who have seen portions of videotape not aired by the station have suggested the report contained serious errors."

In court proceedings this week, the television station was under orders to produce all of the "raw footage" of its coverage of the al-Dura story, a recording that previous testimony had determined ran 27 minutes. What the station showed in court, however, amounted to just 18 minutes of videotape.

"In the interest of revealing the truth of this important story, we call on Judge Laurence Trebucq, the presiding judge in this matter, to assure that France 2 produce in court the full video record," said Harris.

AJC, which maintains an office in Paris as one of its eight overseas bureaus, is in regular contact with government officials and the Jewish community in France, and has long sought the fullest possible accounting of the al-Dura matter.

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Source: American Jewish Committee

CONTACT: Kenneth Bandler, Director of Public Relations and
Communications, +1-212-891-6771, bandlerk@ajc.org, or Michael Geller,
Assistant Director of Public Relations, +1-212-891-1385, gellerm@ajc.org, both
of the American Jewish Committee

Web Site:

http://www.ajc.org/

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