Ramallah -16/10/2019 The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms  (MADA) launched a media campaign to promote and raise awareness of digital rights in Palestine under the slogan (The Internet is a human right, not a commodity).

This campaign targets the Palestinian public in general and journalists in particular aims at defining digital rights, rights related to the Internet, promoting public awareness of the various violations against digital rights, through the dissemination of awareness messages through social media, publications, TV and radio ads, and billboards in Various Palestinian Governorates.

The Director General of MADA Mousa Rimawi said that this campaign comes within the continuous efforts carried out by MADA Center over the past years in this field through organizing awareness campaigns, meetings, and consultations with concerned parties, and holding specialized training for journalists and media students, in addition to monitoring violations against freedom of expression on social media networks, where some companies owning social media sites, especially (Facebook) company closed hundreds of pages and personal accounts belongs to Palestinian journalists since the beginning of this year.

He pointed out that the Center has been in contact with the management of Facebook during the past months, which has so far responded by activating nine pages, and we are still waiting for their response on the reasons for the closure of the rest, and to stop this policy affecting freedom of expression, which came within understandings with the Israeli occupation government.

Al-Rimawi also stressed that communication with the government, private companies and civil society institutions will continue to reach a plan that allows citizens to access the Internet at the lowest prices gradually, and to make it available for free in the foreseeable future.

This campaign is funded by the European Union as part of the "A Step Forward Towards Promoting Freedom of Expression in Palestine" project. It seeks to identify many aspects and concepts related to digital rights and the laws that must be available to promote them in Palestine, especially with the practice of many violations often against these rights are not recognized by some users of modern technology, with a general lack of access to these rights and defend.

The campaign is based on the fact that digital rights are fundamental human rights, which are broadly related to the freedoms and rights of individuals exercised over the Internet, which allows the individual to access, use, create and disseminate the Internet and digital media,

The most important of these rights: the right to access the Internet at the lowest prices as a source of information and a tool to share, the right to freedom of opinion and expression on the Internet, the right to privacy, the right to anonymity and non-censorship.

In 2012, 2014 and 2016, the Human Rights Council recognized that the same protected human rights must be protected online as well, as the Internet has great potential to materialize human rights through easy communication, access to information and the exercise of freedoms, as enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For more information, please contact:

Sharif Haj Ali - Project Coordinator

Mona Abdel Hafeez - Assistant Coordinator

Email: projects@madacenter.org

Phone: 00972 22976519

Mobile: 00972 597959576