The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) denounce the dismissed government media office prevention of the International Federation of Journalists to hold a media conference to discuss the “Ethical Journalism Initiative" today morning, where it was scheduled be held for two days, in conjunction with a conference at Ramallah via video conference, on grounds of failure to obtain a license for it.
ABC TV correspondent and a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in Gaza, Sami Ziyara said that this prevention of convening the Conference was a great disappointment to the journalists in Gaza. Ziyara added that the governmental media office in Gaza asked the International Federation of Journalists to apply for a permission from the government in Gaza to hold the conference, but the “IFJ" refused to do so, because it used to hold conferences in all countries of the world without a permit.
This prevention comes in the context of attacks on media freedoms, this month in the Gaza Strip where Palestinian police detained and insulted the Italian news agency “ANSA" correspondent Safwat AlKahlout , and prevented him from traveling, while he was trying to travel through Rafah crossing, on 3 November 2009. AlKahlout said that he was threatened directly by the security officer at the gate of the Rafah border. And was detained when he said that he would submit a formal complaint to the concerned authorities.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian military intelligence service arrested Aqsa correspondent Tariq Abu Zeid on Sunday (8 November). His father said that Tariq was summoned by the service on Saturday (November 7), while he was walking in a street in Nablus city. And when he went to their headquarters in Nablus yesterday, they arrested him. Abu Zeid also was arrested by Palestinian intelligence service in the twenty-seventh of last August, and was released on the seventeenth of last September.
MADA condemns the conference holding prevention in Gaza, and demands the dismissed government to rescind that decision. MADA also condemns the attacks and harassment carried out against journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And calls for stopping them, because they are considered a clear violation of freedom of opinion and expression.
