On October 8, 2025, Israeli authorities arrested German journalist Anna Liedtke, while she was sailing aboard the Wijdan (Conscience), a vessel that was part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), one of several aid convoys that have attempted to break the blockade on Gaza. She was released and deported from Israel on October 10.
On December 20, 2024, Liedtke said she was raped in prison, revealing her account while participating in the International Solidarity Conference with Political Prisoners organized by the Prisoners’ Voice Platform in Paris.
“We were transferred from one prison to another, and during the strip searches, I was raped,” she told the audience.
In an interview with Etkin Haber, a Turkey-based media outlet, Liedtke said “while being transferred from Ktzi’ot Prison to Givon Prison, they did the strip search and I was raped during that transfer.”
In response to a CPJ inquiry, the Israel Prison Service said in an email that it “categorically denied” the allegations, saying it is “not aware of such incidents.” It added that it “operates in accordance with the law and under the supervision of official oversight bodies,” and that inmates’ rights “are upheld by professionally trained staff.”
The Adalah Center — a legal advocacy group for Arab minority rights in Israel that is representing the detained journalists and activists — told CPJ that Israeli authorities “treated the journalists accompanying the flotilla no differently than they treated the activists,” even though the journalists were there to report on the voyage.
Adalah said that at Ashdod Port, “the authorities issued arrest and long-term entry ban orders against several journalists,” calling the actions “a serious and unlawful infringement on their right to work and a restriction on their ability to cover events in the region.”