Ramallah – 17th July 2024. A group of civil society organizations recommended the necessity of holding a meeting with the Palestinian Prime Minister DR. MOHAMMED MUSTAFA to brief him on the results and recommendations of the Press Freedom Index Report in Palestine for the year 2023. This group also recommended that it be shared across the departments of media faculties in Palestinian universities due to its importance and high credibility in helping students and researchers in Palestine.
These recommendations came during a workshop held by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) on Monday, 15th July 2024, at its headquarters in the city of Ramallah, to announce the most important results of the fifth edition of the Press Freedom Index in Palestine, which was prepared for the past year 2023 in the West Bank without Gaza Strip, given the difficult conditions the Strip is going through due to the continuation of the Israeli war on it since the seventh of last October. The scale recorded (361) points out of a total of (1000) points, a difference of (23) points from the previous year, where the overall result indicated a low level, or a “bad” rating (red), which is the rating with categories falling between (201 - 400) points.
The workshop was opened with a welcome by DR. GHAZI HANANIA, Chairman of the Board of Directors of (MADA), to all attendees from civil society organizations and international organizations who were able to attend via Zoom technology. He pointed out the importance of completing the index in light of the complex circumstances that the Palestinians, in general, and the media sector in particular live in. After the number of martyred journalists reached more than (158) since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza Strip.
The expert and statistical researcher, MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, also briefly reviewed the Press Freedom Index, the methodology used to prepare it, and the fields and indicators on which this index was built.
The attendees discussed the difficult conditions that Palestinian journalists live in as a result of the dual pressures placed on them from all sides, which had a negative impact on the results of the report, especially in light of the absence of a Palestinian legislative council, which makes it difficult to hold accountable for the violations to which Palestinian media freedoms are exposed. Within this context, the institutions came out with many recommendations, including the need to hold an official meeting with the Palestinian Prime Minister and inform him of the results of this report and its recommendations in an attempt to make the necessary amendments to the media legislative environment, including reconsidering the Cybercrime Law and some of its articles and pushing towards the adoption of the Right to Access Information Law, which MADA had previously won from the former Prime Minister approval to pass it due to its importance to journalists and citizens as well, as without reforming some laws and approving others, there is the possibility of making progress regarding issues of freedom of opinion and expression.
The institutions present agreed on the need for the report and its recommendations to be published and circulated widely, especially to media departments in Palestinian universities, to encourage media students to read it and to enable researchers in the media field to benefit from it.
The attendees also highlighted the importance of having a specific body responsible for following up on the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report, and the necessity of concerted efforts in a redundant manner in order to bring about positive change regarding the state of media freedoms, which has begun to approach the very bad (black) level.
It is noteworthy that MADA Center has been working on preparing this index for six years to measure the extent of progress and decline in the level of freedom of expression in all Palestinian geographical regions and to compare among them based on the results of previous indexes. The index for the year 2023 was supported by the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), and was implemented in the West Bank and not Gaza Strip due to the war that the Strip is exposed to - which is still ongoing - that prevented a comprehensive analysis and comparison between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
To view the full index report:
The 2023 Palestine Press Freedom Index The (madacenter.org)
