In the atmosphere of post 11 September 2001 a journalist working for the Qatar-based television network AlJazeera was victimised by a clearly discriminatory measure.

On 15 october 2001 Ahmad Kamal, a Palestinian journalist and correspondent in Brussels for the Qatar-based Arab-language television network, AlJazeera, flying into Geneva to cover a meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), was refused entry into Switzerland at Geneva Airport. He was held for nine hours by the airport police, then escorted to a plane back to Brussels. A police spokesman, Pascal Di Camillo, stated that the journalist, "lacking valid travel documents (...), had not been placed in overnight detention but left free to roam in the airport's transit area". Ahmad Kamal denied this official version and asserted to Reporters Without Borders that in fact he had been locked into a cell from 10 p.m. on 14 October until 7 the next morning, then taken by two policemen to a plane bound for Brussels. Prior to his departure the Swiss embassy in Brussels had assured him that he could obtain a visa at Geneva Airport. Ahmad Kamal was holding a valid residency visa for Belgium.

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