Beirut, 17 August: Four Malaysian journalists had a harrowing experience when they were detained by Hezbollah fighters as they were taking photos and filming the situation in the Baheri area of southern Beirut, Wednesday.

"It was unexpected. Our van was accosted by a plain-clothed man riding a scooter in the middle of the road at 6pm and he asked us to park at the roadside. He told our Syrian driver, Jalal, that he was a Hezbollah member and wanted us to produce the footage we took," said Teynmoli Subramaniam, a TV3 reporter.

She said the man later called other Hezbollah members from a sundry shop nearby and told them that we had taken some footage of the place.

"My cameraman, N. Gunasegaran resisted their demand to hand over our camera which created a tense situation, and the men forcefully entered our van and confiscated the camera."

She said Jalal and Gunasegaran were asked to explain about the footage taken and to replay it, including the interview with Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar.

Gunasegaran said after showing them the visual, the men asked him to enter a room beside the sundry shop. "I panicked. I was going to cry at that time and was scared to death. I thought they would do something terrible to me," he said.

"One of the men came into the room and explained politely to me that he had to see the visual that we had taken of the Baheri area and deleted the visual.

"He was afraid that we might give the visual to the wrong hands and use our visual to make a plan to attack the place which is a densely populated area," he said.

"It was my first experience with Hezbollah. All I could do was to pray to God," said RTM [Radio Television Malaysia] reporter Fadzil Aziz who could only stay in the car together with Teynmoli and this Bernama reporter, while watching Gunasegaran and Jalal being interrogated by Hezbollah members.

After more than half-an-hour of waiting, the men let them go unharmed.

Source: Bernama website, Kuala Lumpur, in English 17 Aug 06

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