The Palestinian prime minister, Dr. Mohammad Shtiah said “We will be faithful to the Pen, freedom of press and expression, and accept constructive criticism and work on it through policies and legislation that will protect citizens and journalists.”

This came during his meeting on Sunday, June 23, 2019, at his office in Ramallah with a delegation from the Palestinian center for development and media freedoms –MADA included the Board Chairman D. Ghazi Hanania, Director General of the Center Mousa Rimawi and a number of members of the Board. The meeting dealt with a number of important issues related to press freedom. The delegation expressed satisfaction with the statements made by the government, which stressed the protection of press freedom, in addition to the absence of violations in the West Bank last month, while the Israeli violations continued to escalate.

The delegation also stressed the importance of the government to benefit from the index of freedom of press prepared by the MADA Center in order to strengthen it and remove obstacles to the development of the Palestinian press, and to pass the necessary legislation, especially the law on access to information.

The meeting also dealt with the importance of the World Conference on Press Freedom organized by the British Foreign Office in cooperation with the Canadian Foreign Ministry, which will be attended by the government and the MADA Center.

Shtiah also stressed the importance of MADA role in the field of media freedoms and the promotion of freedom of opinion and expression, in addition to its role in monitoring Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists. He also noted the importance of the freedom of press index, adding that the government will study it carefully to benefit from it as much as possible.

The Prime Minister received from the delegation the Report of the Freedom of Press index in Palestine for the year 2018, in addition to the report on the violations of media freedoms in Palestine, and the delegation had briefed him at the beginning of the meeting on the most prominent programs and achievements of the Center.

Worth to mention the new government took office on April 13, 2019.