Ramallah – 05/07/2021 The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) launched a media campaign to combat hate speech in the Palestinian media and social media networks. This campaign aims to counter hate speech and to indicate its grave dangers to civil peace and human rights. It also aims to encourage adherence to the values of dialogue and tolerance.

This campaign, which was launched under the slogan “Accusations of treason, apostasy and incitement is a threat to civil peace” comes at a difficult and sensitive stage that the Palestinian society is going through, following the murder of the activist Nizar Banat on 06/24/2021 after his arrest by Palestinian security services, the protests that followed, and the attacks on the citizens participating in the peaceful marches and on the journalists during their work while covering the protests.

MADA called on all media outlets, activists and citizens to avoid this kind of speech, which does not fall within freedom of expression. The center also stresses that holding accountable those responsible for Nizar's killing, attacks on demonstrators and journalists, as well as respect of freedom of expression, will contribute to reducing tension, and curbing hate speech.

In 2018, MADA Center, in cooperation with the UNESCO, launched a program to combat hate speech, which included issuing a guide to define this kind of speech and its difference from freedom of expression:https://www.madacenter.org/files/image/editor/2019/HatespeechE.pdf

The center also organized training courses for journalists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, launched a campaign to introduce and confront it, and produced an animation a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fun96aTy6DM

The Center also called for the adoption of code of conduct to confront hate speech in the local Palestinian media, to adhere to the principles and ethics of journalistic work, and to avoid incitement and hatred. This document was signed by 21 Palestinian media outlets on 03/08/2019.

Press release about the code of conduct: https://www.madacenter.org/en/article/1243/

MADA Center also worked with a group of regional organizations to establish the “MENA Network for Countering Hate Speech” on September 23, 2019. The network aims to introduce hate speech, educate journalists and activists to confront and limit this speech, and to establish the principle of tolerance, dialogue and rejection of violence within societies.

This campaign, funded by the Open Society Foundations, is part of the Center's activities to promote freedom of expression, and will include many publications on social media, where the campaign to "stop Israeli arrests against journalists", which began in the mid of June, will be ended, as a result of the current circumstances that Palestinian society is going through.