Ramallah- 31 match 2013: the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms MADA welcomes the pardon by the President Mahmoud Abbas of Al Quds TV correspondent Mamdouh Hamamrah, after the court rejected the appeal and accepted the sentence of the journalist to one year in jail, on 28th March 2013. Where MADA’s lawyer Sana A’ranki has worked until late night hours in Friday on his release with the presidential adviser for legal affairs Mr.Hassan Ala’oweri, who agreed to accelerate the procedures to regain Hamamrah his freedom and return to his family, and for that we are thankful. 

MADA general director Mr. Mousa Rimawi said that “despite the center welcoming the president’s decision to pardon our colleague Hamamrah, we call on the president to issue a presidential decree to cancel articles relating to the imprisonment of journalists in the Jordanian Penal Code enforced in the West Bank, and replacing imprisonment with a fine when journalists prosecuted on issues related to their work or expression of their opinion. 

Rimawi added that “the decision to jail our colleague Hamamrah bashed media freedoms in Palestine, especially after the decline of Palestinian violations in the second half of last year, which we have indicated in our press conference about the state of media freedoms in Palestine a day before of the decision of the appeal, and we considered the decline a positive indication we hoped it would continue, since the first half of last year witnessed many prosecutions of journalists and bloggers and blocking of some media sites.

Rimawi  mentioned that MADA followed Hamamrah’s case since the beginning, where we reached a conviction, based on the development of the case, that it was fabricated, and it is one of the manifestations of the negative effects of internal divisions in the Palestinian arena. And we demanded repeatedly to stop pushing journalists in internal differences and end the effects of the division on the Palestinian media, especially as it was one of the most sectors adversely affected by the division.

Rimawi reassures the importance of freedom of expression to the Palestinian society, and asks officials exposed to criticism to have an open mind and heart and accept the criticism, because a person in a public office is not immune from criticism, especially by the press. In addition, the Palestinian Basic Law guarantees freedom of expression in article 19, and the study issued by the MADA in last December showed how judiciary in democratic countries is biased for the benefit of freedom of expression cases.