The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) represented by its General Director Mousa Rimawi participated at the World Press Freedom Conference held in London (10-11 / 7/2019) at the initiative of the British Foreign Office and in cooperation with the Canadian Foreign Ministry. MADA participated in the preparatory meeting of international institutions held the day before the conference, which issued a statement stressing the need for immediate action, the most important is the release of journalist’s prisoners and stop their killing and attacks against them, and called for investigating all crimes related to the killing of journalists and bringing those responsible to justice, and made several important recommendations: http://www.madacenter.org/news.php?lang=1&id=432
MADA Center welcomes the important results of the conference, in particular the formation of an international coalition of countries that have signed and will sign the "Global Pledge on Media Freedom", and calls on countries to abide by this Pledge, and to force the Israeli occupying state to stop its attacks on the freedom of the press in Palestine.
MADA Center also urges the Palestinian government to sign the pledge and join the Global coalition, speed up the adoption of the Higher Council of Information Law, develop a national plan to protect media and journalists, and pass the access to information law.
During the conference, Al-Rimawi met with the UN Special Commissioner for Freedom of Expression, David Kaye, where he briefed him on the reality of freedom of expression in Palestine. He also stressed the need to act to release the journalist Mustafa Al-Kharouf from the Israeli jails, and to stop the measures to deport him from Jerusalem and Palestine by the Israeli occupation authorities.
On the other hand, MADA center ended its participation in the 41st Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where it presented an intervention on the Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists in the first half of 2019, which escalated during that period, and called on the Human Rights Council to follow up these violations and work to stop it. http://www.madacenter.org/news.php?lang=1&id=433
The center also participated in the side event held at the headquarters of the Human Rights Council, which organized in partnership with the Gulf Center for Human Rights and Maharat Foundation under the title: "Challenges facing journalists in MENA". During the seminar, a group of Arab institutions memebers in (IFEX) presented a statements, which is: MADA center, GC4HR, Maharat, the Arab Network for Human Rights, the Cairo Center for Human Rights, and a representative of UNESCO. MADA focused on its statement on the large number of violations against journalists in Palestine, especially by the Israeli occupation, which is the most serious types of violations for decades, especially the killing of journalists, as its reached 43 since the year 2000.
MADA also welcomed the decline in Palestinian violations in the last two months, especially in the West Bank, which has not recorded any violation during the past month, which are in line with the new government's Headed by Dr. Mohamed Ashtia direction to stop all forms of violations, which was confirmed by the Prime Minister in his meeting with MADA center delegation last month: http://www.madacenter.org/news.php?lang=1&id=431.
MADA center also held a series of meetings in Geneva and London with a number of Arab institutions defending freedom of expression, and discussed with them establishing The Arab Network to Combat Hate Speech, which will be launched soon, with the aim of unifying and focusing efforts of institutions to combat hate speech in the media outlets and social media sites.
