Freelancer forcibly removed, press badge taken at Israeli conference in NYC

Freelance reporter Caroline Haskins was asked by a security guard to leave shortly after recording pro-Palestinian protests at an Israeli tech conference in New York City on March 4, 2024, and was then shoved out, her press badge yanked from her neck, she told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Haskins, who described the encounter at a midtown Manhattan conference center to the Tracker and in an article for the independent New York outlet Hell Gate, said that the guard came up to her while she was tweeting about the protests. He asked who she was and when Haskins identified herself as a freelance reporter, he told her to leave.

After Haskins asked the security guard why she was being removed, she said the guard responded, “I don’t know, management just told me to remove you,” and advised her to reach out to the event organizers for an explanation.

She then started filming the encounter, but said that the security guard grabbed her phone out of her hands. Haskins immediately took it back, and he then clutched both of her arms, brought them behind her back, and pushed her out of the conference hall from behind. As he did, she said he reached for her conference pass lanyard, which was caught in the cords of her headphone cord, and yanked it off before shoving her out the door.

Haskins later contacted conference organizers to ask about her ejection. She tweeted on March 12 that she received a response from a spokesman, who said: “I understand there was turmoil during the TED Talk of Google’s CEO, and security took those people out. I guess that they took out everyone who filmed it and thought they might be a part of this.” She wrote that the spokesman apologized for the delay in response and for her experience, and added that he had “asked for details about what really happened.”