Malsin: No such thing as voluntary deportation

Ma'an - Upon landing in New York on Thursday, Ma'an News Agency's Jared Malsin, a US citizen, said Interior Ministry staff pressured him into dropping a legal challenge against his deportation order just two hours after his lawyer left for the day.

After signing a hand-written letter that Malsin said he believed was a "formality," ministry staff sent the paper to District Judge Kobi Vardi, who presided over Malsin's case, and the judge decided to lift the stay of deportation order.

A motion from Ma'an attorney Castro Daoud, requesting that his client's hearing continue in his absence, was filed and pending decision as the ruling to expel the journalist was made.

Malsin was subsequently placed onto an El Al flight to New York.

"I had no idea I was waving anything, no clue," he said, explaining Israeli officials asked him to create a legal document to withdraw his case without an attorney present, and offered a misleading explanation over what he was signing. Malsin said he wrote a note indicating that he was leaving the facility "without personal coercion."

Speaking as he was transported to the plane, however, Malsin said he had no idea there were legal implications to the paper. "I'm just so relieved to be out," he said.

"None of this was my decision," he emphasized in a phone interview minutes after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York early Thursday morning local time, rejecting reports that he left Israel voluntarily. "There's no such thing as a voluntary deportation. I was deported, period."

Malsin said he was under the impression that the papers he signed would allow him to leave the airport while his case continued. Indeed, Daoud, had filed the motion in Tel Aviv shortly before Malsin was instructed to sign the papers.

Justice Vardi had called for a hearing on Malsin's case on Tuesday, and when no date was set for the proceedings by the afternoon, Malsin and Daoud decided to seek permission for him to leave the detention center as the hearing went forward. Daoud had previously indicated concern that Malsin's case was being dragged out, putting pressure on the journalist to leave before a legal decision was made.

In an e-mail from Malsin to Ma'an staff sent upon his arrival to his parent's home in New Hampshire, he said, about the paper, "I thought it was a formality. In retrospect I wish I hadn't signed it. I believe the prison guards were extremely manipulative, misleading, mendacious in the way they dealt with me."

Israeli explanations

Malsin's deportation was met with mixed reactions for Israeli officials.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad told The Associated Press that Malsin raised security suspicions during an investigation upon his arrival. Hadad told AP it was for these reasons that Malsin was being deported.

She told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth that he had voluntarily left Israel, adding, "I guess he didn't like it [detention] and chose to leave the country."

Allegations of Malsin being a security risk were made even at the start of the deportation process, with documents alleging Malsin's failure to cooperate with Israeli intelligence officers constituting such a threat.

The same day Hadad told AP Malsin was a security threat, however, she was quoted by Reuters and the Washington post as denying Malsin was refused a visa for political or security reasons.

Both rationales fit with some of the allegations in the court documents filed by the Ministry of the Interior, but neither explanation took the full range of charges into account.

Among the Interior Ministry's complaints, were that Malsin had authored articles "inside the [Palestinian] territories," including some "criticizing the State of Israel."

Early in Malsin's detention, Government Spokesman Mark Regev said charges that Malsin was being held because of his status as a journalist were "absurd."

Support for Malsin's case

While the government spokesman denied Malsin's deportation had anything to do with journalism, international press associations condemned the detention as a violation of press freedom from his second day in detention.

"We condemn this intolerable violation of press freedom," said Aidan White, the head of the International Federation of Journalists, the largest union of media professionals worldwide. "The ban of entry in this case appears to be as a reprisal measure for the journalist's independent reporting and that is unacceptable.

"This kind of interference has no place in a democracy," he added.