27 January 2011

Four Palestinian’s youths, one armed, raided the PalMedia Agency (Nablus office) yesterday and proceeded to destroy agency property. The same day, unknown individuals opened fired in front of the house of Agency coordinator Hasan Altiti. The two incidents took place in Nablus city in the West Bank.

Al-Jazeera TV hired the studio from Pal Media yesterday to interview the academic and political analyst Dr.Abdul Sattar Qasim, to discuss Al-Jazeera’s recently released documents: The Palestine Papers.

In a statement to MADA, Altiti said: "the office was raided about 3:15 PM, immediately after completion of the broadcast, the raiders asked about Dr. Qasim and about me, but I was absent; then they started to destroy some of the holdings in the office: a computer, the studio camera, printer, and some glasses, then they fled. At 12:30 AM unknown individuals fired a gun in the air in front of my house".

In another incident, a group of young Palestinians tried to raid Al-Jazeera's TV office in Ramallah on Monday 24 January 2011, in response to the recent publication by Al-Jazeera of the documents about the negotiations, between Palestinian and Israeli over the past ten years.

The Director of Al-Jazeera's TV office in the occupied Palestinian territories Walid Alomari told MADA that a group of youths tried to attack the office but were intercepted by Palestinian police and they did their job perfectly; he expressed his warm thanks to the role that the Palestinian police played in addressing them. Alomari also said:" the people have the right to object Al-Jazeera’s publication, but they have no right to attack it. "

Al-Jazeera TV began publishing The Palestine Papers on Sunday, 23 January 2011 via the “Alhasad Alekhbari" program in addition to launching a new website called "transparency- Al-Jazeera", which contains about 1600 documents and consists of more than six thousand pages detailing the Palestinian-Israel negotiations of the last ten years.

Al-Jazeera’s publishing of the documents has caused angry reactions from the Palestinian leadership, which has accused Al-Jazeera of falsifying facts and incitement against Palestinian Authorities. Deputy Minister of Justice in the Palestinian Authority said this morning that he has begun preparations to study the lawsuit on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority against Al-Jazeera TV.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) condemns the raid against Pal Media Agency and the shooting in front of the house of its director Hasan Altiti in Nablus. MADA also appreciate the role of Palestinian police in preventing the attack against Al-Jazeera office in Ramallah, and stresses the need to protect Media  outlets.

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Contact:
Riham Abu Aita
Public Relation Officer
Ramallah
riham@madacenter.org
www.madacenter.org