19 January 2011

The Israeli occupation authorities banned West Bank Al-Jazeera Net correspondent Awad Alrjoub from traveling to Jordan via the Allenby Bridge border on the 17th of January 2011. The occupation forces offered no explanation to Alrjoub as to the reason for this restriction.

Alrjoub traveled to Allenby Bridge last Monday intending to attend Al-Jazeera’s “international conference for electronic press" in Doha from the 19th-20th of January 2011. On arrival to Allenby, Alrjoub was surprised by the Israeli authorities decision to deny his right to travel.

Alrjoub said that he has traveled many times before without any problems and asserts that this incident is an example of a tactic employed by Israeli authorities, intended to pressurize Al-Jazeera and its journalists into altering their coverage of Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories.

Banning Alrjoub from travel is against article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country".The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) strongly condemns the Israeli policy of banning journalists from foreign travel and moving between the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. MADA calls on the International community and International Human Rights organizations to exercise a real pressure on Israel to halt its practices against Palestinian journalists and allow them to travel and move freely.

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Contact:
Riham Abu Aita
Public Relation Officer
Ramallah
riham@madacenter.org
www.madacenter.org
00970 2 2976519