Ramallah, 25/11/2014: The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) wrapped up in Ramallah on Tuesday a two-day training workshop for Media students of Al-Quds university and Al-Asreyye college on the subject of freedom of expression and media legislations.
On the first day, media and legal researcher Majed Saleh presented media laws, legal protection for journalists and privacy rules. He explained the work of the judiciary and the rules of media coverage of judiciary news. He also introduced the draft Access to Information law and discussed it with the participants.
On the second day, the trainer Mohammad Abu Arqoub presented international and national concepts of freedom of expression and its status in Palestine, as well as the negative impacts of the violations against freedom of expression on the media and society. Arqoub gave an overview of the Palestinian laws related to the media. He explained the actions regarded as crimes in the Jordanian penal law, i.e. defamation, slander, libel, and the differences between them.
Abu Arqoub also talked about self-censorship and its impact on media and journalism; he also asked the participants whether it is a negative or positive attitude. Abu Arqoub also distinguished between self-censorship and self-regulation. He also presented the reportage “The scissors of self-censorship” which MADA has recently produced as a part of the campaign the center is launching to limit self-censorship among journalists.
The workshop included practical trainings where participants were asked to analyze texts and say if they respected the law or included elements of defamation, slander or libel. The trainer spoke about the court judgments on these issues.
At the end of the training, certificates were handed to all participants. This course was organized in the framework of the project “Defending freedom of expression and opinion through a healthy legal environment” funded by the European Union. MADA started implementing this project at the beginning of the current year. Similar training courses for media students and journalists will be held in different cities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
