October 19, 2002	Saturday	Sha'aban 12, 1423

BEIRUT, Oct 18: Security guards rushed a French journalist out the back door of a Francophone summit media centre on Friday after he was hounded by members of the press who heard him giving a phone interview in Hebrew.

The reporter, a member of French President Jacques Chirac’s press pool who Lebanese officials said also holds Israeli citizenship, hid in the French press pool office after being swarmed by inquisitive colleagues who heard him speaking Hebrew.

Lebanon and Israel are still officially in a state of war, and visitors whose passports show they have set foot in the Jewish state are officially barred from entering Lebanon.

Asked if he was an Israeli citizen, he said: “Do you have Iraqi nationality? I don’t ask you what nationality you have.”

Summit organisers said the man was taken to his hotel after a cordon of security guards rushed him out, and a statement from the summit press centre later said the man was barred from the summit for “causing uproar and chaos”.

The French embassy in Beirut and members of the French delegation declined to comment on whether the man was an Israeli citizen.

Lebanese security officials periodically confiscate books, films and assorted products which they consider linked to Israel or affiliated with Israel’s sympathisers.—Reuters