Updated 2023-11-14
2022-11-26 Repression of Palestinian Media The May 11, 2022, murder of Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, evidently by Israeli soldiers, while she was covering one of their routine raids on a West Bank refugee camp sent ripples through journalistic circles and garnered extensive corporate press coverage. However, when it comes to repression of Palestinian media, Abu Akleh’s killing is just the tip of the iceberg. Palestinian journalists routinely face harassment by Israeli defense forces, and the world’s leading social media platforms have been quick to suspend, block, and restrict users who post pro-Palestinian content, including journalists.
Since 2020, twenty-six Palestinian journalists based in the West Bank have been imprisoned for attempting to cover Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. According to an April 5, 2022, report by Yuval Abraham in the Intercept, Palestinian journalists who post footage or comment on Israel’s use of force are often placed in administrative detention for months at a time and experience harsh interrogations without ever being charged. After serving months of jail time, detainees are typically forced into entering guilty plea deals offered by Israeli military prosecution in order to be released. Often, Palestinian journalists’ social media posts are used against them by Israeli authorities.
During spring 2021, Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists took to social media to condemn the evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Subsequently, activists who condemned the evictions and journalists who covered them faced account suspensions and restrictions on social media. “Annually there are tens of thousands of requests that the Israeli cyber unit [sends] to social media companies in an attempt to silence Palestinians. The number of requests is increasing annually. In 2019 Israel made 19,606 requests from the cyber unit to social media companies regarding content takedowns.”
Repression of Palestinian speech online could soon get much worse. In a January 18, 2022, article for the Jordan Times, Ramzy Baroud revealed that Israel’s minister of justice, Gideon Sa’ar, is pushing legislation known as the “Facebook Law.” The legislation would grant Israeli courts broad powers to remove online content deemed to be “inflammatory” or harmful to the security of the state from social media or “any website at all.” With the exception of publications focused specifically on Israel or the Middle East, there has been no discussion in the corporate media of Israel’s so-called “Facebook Law.” https://www.projectcensored.org/14-repression-of-palestinian-media/
2022-04-05 ISRAEL CHARGES PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS WITH INCITEMENT — FOR DOING THEIR JOBS In a spate of arrests, Israeli security forces interrogated Palestinian journalists about their work, then hit them with trumped-up charges. SINCE THE BEGINNING of 2020, Israel has imprisoned at least 26 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank. In most cases, the journalists were placed under administrative detention — a common method used by Israel to hold Palestinians without filing charges — for anywhere between six weeks and one-and-a-half years. Nine of these journalists were indicted, most often for incitement, and on average spent about eight months in detention.
As of March 2022, there were 10 Palestinian journalists in Israeli prisons on charges relating to publishing materials online — either as private individuals or through their professional work — that were deemed “incitement,” according to Saleh al-Masri, who heads the Journalist Support Committee in Palestine. Three of the imprisoned journalists are in administrative detention; three have been indicted; and four are being held and interrogated as part of investigations. (Seven other journalists are being imprisoned for convicted charges of taking part in violent activities that had nothing to do with journalistic work.) https://theintercept.com/2022/04/05/israel-palestine-journalists-incitement/
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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