Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) emphasised that the Palestinian Authority’s Security Services continue arresting and torturing citizens for their journalistic work or activism in rejecting the occupation, while being unable to protect the Palestinian people from the brutal attacks of the Israeli occupation soldiers and settler gangs.
On Friday, October 4, 2024, Journalist Laith Jaar, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was arrested while filing a complaint against a member of the security services who assaulted and threatened to shoot him if he saw him again in Tulkarm, before releasing him hours later.
Laith was arrested for his coverage of a heinous crime committed by the occupation in Tulkarm camp, which resulted in the killing of at least 18 civilians by an intensive air strike. Instead of holding the occupation accountable for this crime, the security services launched a smear campaign against him and arrested him arbitrarily, thus supporting the occupation and targeting journalists who report the horrific crimes the Palestinian people are being subjected to.
Laith was subjected to a smear campaign by the security services over the past weeks for his coverage of the occupation forces’ storming the Jenin and Tulkarm camps.
It is worth noting that the efforts of the PA security services in pursuing journalists is in line with the occupation’s fierce attack on the press, especially Al Jazeera Network, whose offices were closed in all Palestinian territories due to the effective role it played in exposing the crimes of the occupation.
AOHR UK held President Mahmoud Abbas fully responsible for the suppression and arrest of journalists and activists by the Palestinian security services at this critical time in which the Palestinian people need all efforts to expose and stop the crimes of the occupation in all Palestinian territories. It also called on him to hold accountable all those involved in the attacks on journalists.
