Ramallah – 9th August 2023. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) expresses its strong condemnation of the blatant attack on journalists yesterday afternoon, which took place while they were performing their work covering a sit-in organized by female students from the Islamic Bloc in front of Hebron University to demand an end to political detention.
A group of journalists, namely: (J-Media Agency cameraman, ABDUL MOHSEN TAYSEER AL-SHALALDEH, Watan Agency cameraman and reporter, SARI SHARIF JARADAT, Al-Quds News reporter, NIDAL MAHMOUD ASHMAR AL-NATSHEH, Palestine Today TV reporter and freelance journalist LOUAY MAHBASH AMRO) were assaulted by ten people in civilian clothes, as they were sprayed with pepper gas in the eyes. This caused them burns in the eyes and face, while the journalist "AL-NATSHEH" was beaten up with hands and feet, and one of them hit him with a leather belt on his back, which necessitated him to go to the hospital, where it was found that he had bruises and contusions in separate parts of his body, not to mention that his camera was stolen.
MADA expresses its deep concern about the repeated attacks on journalists recently, and it regrets more that it was carried out by students who are their colleagues at the University. It considers this event as a dangerous indication of the deterioration of public freedoms in general and media freedoms in particular, at a time when facilitating the work of journalists to perform their professional duty is a necessary work that falls on everyone. It also rejects the occurrence of such attacks without holding anyone accountable and responsible in a country where the law guarantees the freedom of journalistic work and is supposed to work to secure protection for it. It further calls on officials, who affirm their respect for freedom of opinion and expression, to apply this in practice by stopping attacks on journalists, and always bringing those responsible to justice.
MADA also seriously considers the attacks on students and journalists by other students - who may belong to security services and carried out the attack in civilian clothes - and calls on the official authorities inside and outside the University to take strict measures against everyone who participated in this attack or colluded with the attackers against journalists and other students in order to preserve civil peace, and to prevent the recurrence of these unfortunate events that would destabilize and disrupt public order.
