Palestine: Freedom of the press under fire

The northern West Bank’s Nablus City hosted a conference on the central role of the press and the critical need to maintain its freedoms. Under major threat are expression and access.

Since the Hamas - Fateh conflict escalated there are three problems facing journalists says the head of the Journalists Union in the West Bank Naim Toubassi. He has told PNN on several occasions, “Now we have Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupation.”

The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen Rights noted that the pace of attacks on the media in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank increased after June 2006 when the internal situation came to a head.

Journalist Atef Sa’ad, a participant in today’s northern West Bank workshop, said, “The painful reality is that media freedoms are sandwiched between the hammer of the occupation on the one hand and the infighting on the other.”

Coverage of the internal rift is a hot topic in all corners of the occupied territory with many agencies and reporters unable to overcome their own personal party bias. On both sides there have also been numerous acts of intimidation, virtual blackouts between the West Bank and Gaza Strip when broadcasting statements by the opposing party, and arrests of those in the journalism profession.

Sa’ad continued, “The great challenge facing press freedoms here include the concrete circumstances that are well-known from the difficulties of objectivity because of the conflict between the powers, the Israeli occupation and the attendant violations of the rights of journalists in exercising their profession.”

Censorship is rampant under Israeli occupation and is now too under the continued internal party schism while freedom of access is heavily restricted by the occupying forces within the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while entering or exiting the Gaza Strip for such work is virtually impossible.

Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have seen the inside of Israeli prisons while others have suffered beatings and death. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is one of several organizations working to preserve press freedoms with numerous statements issued in condemnation of such violations on Palestinian journalists whether from the internal situation or the Israeli occupation.

Majid Sawalha from the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen Rights noted at the conference that the Commission keeps lists of violations against Palestinian journalists.

“Many of the media rights have been violated in different ways including detention, abuse and threats. Internally some have been pressured to not publish certain news while some accuse media of bias at the expense of the other party.”

Date: 14 October 2008

Source: Palestine News Network