At a time the world celebrates the sixty-first anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Palestinian people still suffering from the Israeli occupation, and its continued violations of their basic rights, depriving them of their right to self-determination, and to live in dignity and peace on their homeland, in the last 42 years.

  Israeli occupation forces continue the violations of press freedom in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), and the most serious of it was when four journalists were killed, during the last aggression on Gaza Strip, at the beginning of this year, Israel also continue to impose a brutal blockade on it, which make the lives of more than one million people like a permanent hell.

The violations committed by the Israeli occupation does not make us forget the Palestinian journalists suffering from attacks and arrests by the Palestinian security service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, especially over the past three years, which it also increased during the last month.

In this great occasion, The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), demands the international community to pressure Israel to stop its attacks on journalists in particular, and to cease its violations of Palestinian rights in general, and to abide the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the (19) article, which says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." MADA also asks the Palestinian authorities in Gaza and West Bank, to be committed to this Article, and also the 19 Article in the Palestinian Basic Law, which also included the freedom of opinion and expression, and to stop all attacks on journalists.