The Palestinian Authority is waging a war on journalists in the West Bank
The Palestinian Authority has been targeting journalists in the West Bank, in particular Palestinian journalists, to obliterate the practices of the Palestinian security services against Palestinian citizens, and to prevent the disclosure of the corruption of the Palestinian politicians and their involvement in major thefts from the money of the Palestinian people, in addition to the involvement of senior Palestinian officials in security cooperation with Israel.
For the above-mentioned reasons, the PA has been targeting dozens of them, often imprisoning them following fair trials and indicting them with the charges.
The Palestinian Penal Code includes loose laws used to silence opinions and to issue charges against journalists.
While covering the events of the killing of civil activist Nizar Banat, the authorities attacked journalists, broke their tools and cameras, and beat them. This affected all journalists in the West Bank, including the journalist Fayhaa Khanfar, Najla Zaitoun, Mohamed Muna, and Alaa Al-Rimawi.
The arrests are usually based on security fake charges, and on loose legal articles to fit the charges filed against journalists.
Attacking journalists amounts to a war crime, and an assault on the public right to know the truth.
This behavior of the PA does not differ from the Israeli occupation forces practice against Palestinian journalists. It is rather joint security cooperation against Palestinian journalists, where the PA usually arrests journalists and after releasing them, the Israeli army will arrest them again or vice versa.
The international community has to provide international protection for Palestinian journalists and urge the authority not to attack or assault them.
The international media community has a role in exposing these practices by the Palestinian Authority and raising global public opinion about them.
In our organization, we call on the international community to take steps to provide protection for Palestinian journalists and media professionals, and not to allow the PA to abuse their rights.
