Ramallah-30/10/2015 The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) express the concern regarding a decision from the Palestinian Ministry of Information to suspend the work of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper office in Ramallah City (its headquarters in London). 

 

Naela Khalil, a journalist and the Office Manager of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed in Ramallah, reported to MADA that on Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 4:00 pm, Palestinian Security Forces, who didn’t reveal their identity, surrounded the headquarters of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper’s office in Ramallah. After being denied entry, the Palestinian Security Forces requested the keys of the newspaper’s office from the building concierge, but he told them that he does not have a copy of the key. On the next day, the Security Forces returned in the afternoon but were not allowed again to enter the premises.  

 

Khalil added that she was not in Ramallah at the time of the third attempt to raid the newspaper office on Saturday; however, she attempted to speak to the Palestinian Security Forces who refused to communicate with her. Accordingly, she had to communicate through the concierge's loud speaker that the newspaper’s lawyer Mr. Muhammad Camille, due to the fact that we did not receive any violation paper or fine previously. After Naela made this announcement, she heard one of the Security Agents say that she must present herself at the Ramallah interrogation center on the same day at 7:00 pm. 

 

Khalil said that on Sunday 25 October 2015, she headed with Mr. Montaser Hamdan a member of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate secretariat to Mr. Mahmoud Khalifeh’s office  the  acting deputy of MOI, who informed her about a decision to suspend the work of Al-Araby  Al-Jadeed newspaper office as a result of publishing an offensive article against the Palestinian authority and its institutions, which was recently published in an nnex of the newspaper, which is a completely independent entity both administratively and financially, with notice that the article does not by any mean, reflect or represent the vision or opinion of the newspaper. 

 

She added that on both Sunday and Monday, the newspaper's lawyer headed to the Public Prosecutor's Office in Ramallah, in an attempt to acquire whether there is any formal decision to suspend the work of the newspaper office; but he couldn’t find out. 

 

Khalil said “by Tuesday, the lawyer could know that there is a formal decision at the General Prosecutor office to suspend the work of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, but he was denied from receiving a copy of that decision. Accordingly, we decided to send a formal letter to the General Prosecutor detailing what happened starting from October 22 until October 27 and we demanded to see a formal decision because we couldn’t abide by oral decision, on 28 October we decided to attend work in the office. 

 

Furthermore, she confirmed that they had applied for a license for their office to operate a year ago but still had not received approval, but they are doing their job in the office since few months ago.   

Mada Center calls on to stop the decision to suspend the work of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, due to publishing an article in one of its annexes, considered by the official authorities as offensive, where this action hurt media freedoms, MADA also demand the ministry of information to give working license to the newspaper office according to the law. 

 

Finally,. MADA would also like to recall Article 26 of the Palestinian Printing and Publications Law, which stipulates the following: 

 

“If a press publication publishes an incorrect news item or an article that includes incorrect information related to the public interest, the responsible chief editor shall publish the written reply or correction which he receives from the concerned authority, free of charge, in the issue following the date on which the reply or correction is received and in the same place and font in which the news item or article was published in the press publication”.