Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) emphasised that the decision to stop Al-Jazeera Channel broadcasting and closing its offices is in line with a similar decision made by the occupation government aimed to stop Al-Jazeera from covering the crimes of the occupation. Large forces surrounded Al-Jazeera’s offices and closed them, while the security services of the Palestinian Authority did the same.
AOHR UK added that the occupation government was raged by Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the crimes committed by the IOF throughout the occupied Palestinian Territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip. Likewise, today, the Palestinian Authority is closing Al-Jazeera’s office because it does not want the media to cover the violations of its security services or even the crimes of the occupation.
AOHR UK confirmed that the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, his government and security services, have gone too far in exchanging roles with the occupation forces, which ranges between arrests and torture to killing, all the way to suppressing freedom of expression and attacking journalism.
The Palestinian Authority’s security services and those affiliated with it have been launching systematic demonisation campaigns against all media outlet or the journalist who publish reports or news exposing the violations of these security services, in addition to the field assault on journalists and their arrests.
The only mean left for the Palestinians to convey their suffering to the world is through the press and media, after all other means have been closed, as no one was able to put an end to the crimes of the occupation or the continuous violations of the PA’s security services.
This dangerous step taken by the PA in dealing with the media, and treating it as a means to convey its narrative alone or the narrative of the occupation and spreading their misleading propaganda, requires all concerned civil society organisations to stand against such arbitrary decision.
Journalists in general and Al-Jazeera Network in particular have worked very hard to convey the truth of what is happening in a professional and neutral manner; therefore the journalists and their families were targeted in cowardly and deliberate liquidation operations during the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
It is our duty to honour these journalists for their work, and to provide all means to support and facilitate their work, not to storm their offices and terrorise them as the occupation does, since they are already facing great risks and hardship while covering the events.
AOHR UK calls on President Mahmoud Abbas to immediately revoke this decision due to its serious repercussions in obstructing the delivering of the truth about the crimes committed by the occupation and settler gangs against the Palestinians.
