GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Sometime last year, Hanan Omar, a journalist from Gaza City, sat at a popular outdoor cafe preparing to interview an activist about prisoner affairs. She had no idea that sitting in public would land her in police custody.
“As I was getting ready to start the interview, detectives arrived at the café,” Omar (a pseudonym) told Al-Monitor. “Of course, there were dozens of young men and women [there]. The security officers escorted me out, along with the person they wanted, who happened to be the person I was about to interview. They interrogated me about the nature of my relationship with that person, and I explained that I was a journalist, but nobody listened.”
