Ramallah – 1st April 2024. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) announced the findings of the annual report on media freedoms in Palestine during the past year 2023.
This came during a press conference held today, Monday, at MADA Center headquarters, where the Chairman of the Board of Directors delivered the conference speech, with the participation of MR. JIHAD HARB, Member of the Board of Directors, and MS. SHERINE AL-KHATIB, Acting Director of the Center, and a number of journalists and media institutions.
First, DR. HANANIA welcomed the audience and asked them to recite Al-Fatiha for the souls of the civilian martyrs, including the martyrs of the media movement since the beginning of October 7 in Gaza Strip.
He reviewed the number of violations during the year 2023 committed by all parties under circumstances that can be described as bloody on media freedoms, to say the least. He further indicated that MADA Center, despite all the challenges and obstacles, is still keen to continue performing its role and completing its mission for which it was established. He stressed again the importance of approving the right to access information law, hoping that the new government would approve it as soon as possible. He also sent a message to all Palestinian factions and organizations to give priority to the public interest and to work seriously to end the division to achieve unity and victory.
For her part, AL-KHATIB reviewed the results of the annual report on media freedoms in Palestine for the year 2023, referring to the efforts of MADA Center since its establishment to shed light on the violations practiced against media freedoms in Palestine from all sides, which crossed all borders during the past year with the martyrdom of 103 journalists in Gaza Strip due to the crimes of the Israeli occupation against media freedoms.
She showed that violations of media freedoms increased during the year 2023 by 40% compared to the year before 2023, as MADA documented a total of 848 violations against media freedoms in Palestine (the occupation forces and authorities committed a total of 715 violations (84.3%), while the social media committed a total of 62 violations (7.3%). As for the various Palestinian parties in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they committed 71 violations (8.3%) of the total documented violations, indicating that the Israeli war on Gaza Strip was one of the main reasons for the increase in the number of violations as a result of the atrocities committed by the occupation forces in the last quarter of the year, especially all that happened in Gaza Strip, which increased by 72% from the year 2022.
She pointed out that the Israeli violations fall under 21 types, and as in previous years, most of them occurred within the types that are dangerous to media freedoms and to the lives of journalists, which are (murder, physical injuries, preventing coverage and targeting to prevent coverage, arrest, closing and destroying media institutions, in addition to bombing and destroying journalists' houses), which constituted 74% of all Israeli violations.
The report indicated that the 103 murders of journalists constituted 14.4% of the total Israeli violations, followed by physical assaults, which amounted to 141 attacks, in about 64% of which the occupation forces resorted to using live ammunition and lethal means against journalists during field coverage.
The report also showed a decrease in the number of social media violations documented during the year 2023, as it recorded a total of 62 violations out of the total number of violations, representing 7%, and 89% thereof by “Meta” Company.
However, this decrease does not indicate an improvement in the policy of social media sites regarding Palestinian content. Rather, it is due to the inability to document and monitor any violations it in the last quarter of the year after the start of the war, due to its high incidence among journalists in Gaza Strip.
The report also revealed a slight increase in the number of documented Palestinian violations of 13 types during the past year, 2023, as it documented a total of 71 violations committed by Palestinian parties in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, representing 8% of the total documented violations, compared to 55 violations documented in the previous year, 2022.
The report indicated that physical assaults topped Palestinian violations in number, amounting to 10 assaults, followed by arrests of journalists, with 9 violations. The report also showed that Palestinian violations in the West Bank witnessed an increase during the year 2023 by 26% over the previous year in 2022, and violations in Gaza Strip increased slightly by 5 points over the previous year.
To read the full report: https://www.madacenter.org/en/article/1463/
