23 May 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The head of a new Palestinian news channel has been arrested on undisclosed charges in Israel. Bahaa Khairi Moussa, the general director of the Palestine Prisoner Channel, which covers the conditions faced by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, was arrested on Thursday (17 May). Saher al-Qassim, the news broadcaster’s executive director, believes the channel’s specialist coverage has lead to the arrest. Moussa’s whereabouts is currently unknown.
26 Apr 12 | Digital Freedom, Middle East and North Africa
UPDATE 27 April: Communications Minister Mashhour Abu Daka resigned yesterday, citing personal reasons. Abu Daka reportedly accused al-Mughni of “gagging free expression” shortly before his resignation.
The Palestinian Authority has reportedly enforced a block on accessing sites critical of President Mahmoud Abbas by pressuring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) since February.
Local news agency Ma’an made the discovery in cooperation with Open Observatory of Network Interference and after a member of Prime Minister Salam Fayyed’s cabinet agreed to speak publicly about the story. The blocking of sites including Amad, Fatah Voice, Firas Press represents a crackdown on those which tend to cover internal Fatah politics and are thus critical of the President, who is already being accused of a power grab due to his ever-increasing number of roles within the Authority. Due to some of the sites being loyal to former Fatah official Muhammed Dahlan, Ma’an describes how following a political spat between Dahlan and Abbas, resulting in a raid on Dahlan’s house, “the Palestinian Authority was complaining about its inability to shut down alleged Dahlan media based abroad” from June 2011. Four of these sites are currently blocked, meaning that the PA have no qualms about censoring sites based outside of their jurisdiction if it suits their political purpose.
According to Ma’an, the order to block the sites was hand-delivered by the Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad al-Mughni to the CEO of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company (or PalTel) and other smaller ISPs based in the West Bank. Ma’an also state that al-Mughni, whose name appears to be increasingly connected to cases of crackdowns on the press, including the arrest without charge of several journalists in recent weeks, has dismissed these claims and refused to respond to questions on the topic.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Advocacy Coordinator Danny O’Brien stated in response that “by blocking these websites, the Palestinian Authority is creating a dangerous new infrastructure for the suppression of speech in its own country.” With the PA already entering a phase of arresting journalists whose work or opinions they dislike, “a dangerous new infrastructure” which censors the internet appears to be precisely the right description.
Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship told Ma’an: “The blocking of these sites seems to be blatantly political. This kind of action is not the kind that any genuine democratic government should be involved in, and it reflects extremely poorly on the Palestinian Authority.”
In February, Abbass’ own Communications Advisor as well as PalTel representatives spoke out against Denial of Service attacks that were frequently disabling certain news sites or even making internet access an impossibility in the West Bank. PalTel Chief Executive Ammar al-Ikir went as far as to state that “there is an electronic war against Palestine, which began after Palestine became a member of UNESCO.”
Yet the same representatives who spoke out against an external attack on internet access and net freedom are those who are complicit in blocking sites for political gain from within. The only positive element of the situation is the hope that the discovery of Abbas’ and the PA’s efforts to clamp down on dissent is likely to be entirely counterproductive in its effects.
10 Apr 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Two arrests linked to Facebook posts critical of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have spurred a variety of human rights and media freedom groups to call on the PA to stop harassing their critics.
On Wednesday 28 March, Palestinian Preventative Security Forces detained lecturer Ismat Abdul-Khaleq “after they read a quote on her Facebook page accusing President Mahmoud Abbas of being a traitor and demanding he resigns,” lawyer Issam Abdeen of the Palestinian rights group al-Haq told the Associated Press.
Defaming a public official is illegal in the West Bank. As happened in the recent case of detained journalist Yousef Al Shayeb, Abdul-Khaleq was told that she will be held for two weeks while the Public Prosecutor’s office “searches for evidence”. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, she is being held in solitary confinement.
On Sunday 1 April, journalist Tariq Khamis was arrested after discussing Abdul-Khaleq’s arrest on Facebook. Khamis told the website Electronic Intifada that he believed his arrest was connected to an article he wrote about youth groups that were critical of the authorities. He told Reuters that during his three-hour interrogation, “I was questioned on my work as a journalist, and they confiscated the files on my laptop.” He added “the authorities are afraid of journalism.”
Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Al-Haq and Reporteurs Sans Frontieres have all expressed their concern at the way critical voices are being targeted and detained by the PA.
The authorities emphasise that the judiciary and the government are two separate entities, but criticism of the authorities can result in incursions by security and judicial sources. Adnan Dmeiri, the spokesman of the security services which detained and questioned both Abdul-Khaleq and Khamis, claims “freedom of expression stops at defamation”. Yet his following statement, that “any citizen can respond to insults and baseless accusations with a lawsuit” does not hold true. Due process has not been followed and citizens are detained by the state while government bodies search for evidence against them. Even if Abdul-Khaleq, Khamis or even Yousef Al Shayeb are never formally charged, a message has been sent to PA’s critics in order to intimidate them. Its actions undermine its efforts to present themselves as a democratic body in a bid for further recognition and foreign investment.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah. Follow her on Twitter @_Ms_R
05 Apr 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Journalist Yousef Al Shayeb, detained by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank town of Ramallah, was released on bail on Monday “pending investigation” after eight days of incarceration. Al Shayeb began a hunger strike “in the name of press freedom” three days in, after a court renewed his detention order for a further 15 days. His release is seen as being due to the success of his fellow journalists in publicising the case, especially following fresh efforts by the Attorney General to prevent his release on Tuesday.
Al Shayeb is accused of “slander and defamation” and was held while the authorities “searched for evidence” to support the charges brought against him. These accusations came from two government officials: the Foreign Minister Riyad Malki and the head of the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission to France. A conviction for defamation of a public official could result in Al Shayeb imprisonment for two years, and the damages sought by the Minister and the Head of the Mission total 6 million USD.
It is the circumstances surrounding Al Shayeb’s incarceration that present increasingly damning evidence against the Palestinian Authority, who have targeted Al Shayeb and his employer, the Jordanian Al Ghad newspaper, following a story he published in January. The article in question “accused Palestinian Authority deputy ambassador Safwat Ibraghit in Paris of recruiting Arab students to spy on Islamic groups in France and abroad, and sharing that information with both Palestinian and foreign intelligence agencies,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who proclaimed their outrage in a report on Wednesday. The article also accused the Director of the Palestinian National Fund Abu Nabil, the head of the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission Hael al-Fahoum of corruptly promoting Ibraghit to his post, and the Foreign Minister Riyad Malki of covering up the entire scandal.
According to the CPJ as well as local media sources, the Palestinian Authority also pressured Al Ghad, resulting in them firing Al Shayeb shortly after he was first questioned in January; he had worked for the paper for a decade. Al Shayeb has also come under pressure to reveal his sources, but has maintained his journalistic right to protect them following his initial arrest and questioning in January. The Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms has stressed that under Palestinian law, no journalist is required to reveal their sources unless the subject is considered a matter “of national security” or they are required to do so by a court order.
In an effort to correct the negative reports written about them following Al Shayeb’s arrest and hunger strike, the Palestinian Authority have made themselves look unfamiliar with the concept of a free press. The Foreign Minister told local news agency Ma’an that journalists had reacted “emotionally” to the arrest of their colleague, and that they should be willing to hear both sides of the story, as then they would understand who the true victims were. He also maintained that Al Shayeb knowingly published “falsehoods” in the report, but failed to explain why this would be grounds for arrest and detention. On Wednesday, the cabinet issued a communiqué following its weekly meeting which stated it “continues to protect journalists’ rights to work freely”, yet also asked journalists “to maintain professional standards, particularly on public affairs issues.”
Such attitudes seem likely to further increase public dissatisfaction with the body. In a pole on the Ma’an website, an overwhelming majority of 84.9 per cent of responses responded to the question “PA detention of journalists for libel accusation is primarily a failure of?” with “The PA’s ability to tolerate criticism.” Al Shayeb’s arrest also came at the same time as the authority announced, without irony, that it would be issuing a press freedom award. Many journalists as well as the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate have subsequently said that they will boycott the award in light of recent events.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah. Follow her on Twitter @_Ms_R
