US journalist arrested for filming pro-Palestine protest
US police have arrested a journalist over hate crime charges and criminal mischief for recording a protest against Israel’s months-long genocide against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) said video-journalist Samuel Seligson was charged with filming activists as they painted anti-Zionist graffiti on the homes of Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak and three other members of the museum’s board of directors on June 12.
The anonymous activists were reported to have spray-painted symbols of Palestinian resistance on Pasternak’s residence, and hoisted a banner that read, “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White-Supremacist Zionist.”
On the sidewalks in front of other board members’ homes, they also painted slogans such as “Blood on Your Hands”.
Leena Widdi, Seligson’s attorney, told the US media that the NYPD officers had twice raided her client’s Brooklyn apartment in the week before he turned himself in.
Widdi said her client was acting in his capacity as a credentialed member of the media, describing the hate crime charges as an “appalling” overreach by police and prosecutors.
“The state has not provided any reliable evidence that he was actually there. And even if he were there, they have not made any allegations that he engaged in any activity beyond mere presence,” Widdi told the Intercept.
Seligson, the independent videographer, is currently facing felony hate crime charges over recording the pro-Palestine protest. He was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn on eight counts of criminal mischief, four of which were classified as a hate crime.
The arrest has drawn condemnations from press freedom groups as Seligson, who is Jewish, is a fixture at New York City protests and has licensed and sold footage to mainstream outlets, including Reuters and ABC News.
Seligson was previously arrested in May at a pro-Gaza demonstration as he was livestreaming the protest while police made several arrests.
Backed by the US and its Western allies, the Israeli regime launched an all-out invasion of Gaza after it was caught off-guard by Operation al-Aqsa Storm inside the occupied territories in October last year.
Israel has also been enforcing a crippling siege on the coastal territory by choking off the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory.
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