The Committee for the Support of Journalists called Tuesday on international institutions to press the Israeli occupation to release 22 journalists who are still missing in Israeli jails and to intervene to stop the policy of arresting journalists and holding them in the performance of their press duty.
The Committee stressed in a statement on the occasion of the Palestinian Prisoners´ Day, which falls on April 17 of each year, that the Israeli occupation arrests journalists on the background of freedom of opinion and expression and is tried in military courts and through a system of racist laws.
She pointed to the insistence of the occupation army to muzzle the mouths and impede journalists from performing their professional duty contrary to the international conventions that guarantee freedom of press work. Indicating that this policy is systematic and intended to blur the truth and the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people.
The number of journalists held in Israeli jails reached (22) journalists and media, including 3 women journalists. Noting that the occupation is committing flagrant violations against them, and pursues the policy of extending administrative detention several times without charge or trial.
She added that the occupation continues to suppress the freedoms and psychological and moral abuse, which are serious violations in international law, and arrest them in the prisons of the occupation pending trial, and the expulsion of others from their areas of residence, and imposed on them home imprisonment, as well as the deliberate medical negligence of patients and the practice of torture of journalists during Arrest them, prevent visits to their families and lawyers or prevent the entry of their important and personal belongings as a form of extortion and harassment.
She pointed out that since the beginning of the current year 2019, the occupation campaign of intensive arrests and continued for more than (16) cases of detention of journalists.
The report pointed out that the occupation escalated clearly from the issuance of administrative decisions against Palestinian prisoners of war. The report monitored 6 administrative decisions of the mock occupation courts, between the decision to renew and extend the detention of new times, and the postponement and confirmation of the provisions.
She pointed out that the occupation deliberately tortured and harassed the prisoners of journalists inside prisons and provoked them, where the Committee recorded at least (7) cases of harassment and provocation and force some of them to pay fines and financial guarantees.
On the legal status of the detention of prisoners held in Israeli jails, the report pointed out that it is varied in three cases. The first of these cases is the issuance of sentences and the actual imprisonment of 7 cases. They are: Walid Daqqa (life), Mahmoud Issa, Ahmed Saifi, Yousef Shalabi, Munther Khalaf Mufleh, Basem al-Khandakji, Ahmed al-´Arbid 4 years).
The Committee also reported the second case of the legal detention of journalists, namely, administrative detention without charge or trial, which amounted to four cases: Osama Shahin (4 months for the third time), Mohamed Mona (6 months for the second time) Months for the second time - Musa Samhan (4 months for the second time).
On the third case of the legal situation, the committee recorded the arrest of 11 journalists and journalists awaiting the verdict, namely: the sick journalist Bassam al-Sayeh, Yassin Abu Lefah, Musa al-Qudmani, Yasser al-Arabid, Mustafa Kharouf, Hafez Omar).
She strongly condemned the ongoing campaign of arrests and summonses against Palestinian journalists, especially in the occupied city of Jerusalem, and the policy of deportation imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Jerusalemite journalists, especially the journalist Mustafa Kharouf, who recently issued a decision by the Israeli court to reject his family unification, The court extended the precautionary order preventing his deportation from Jerusalem until 5 May 2019. Mustafa will remain in detention until this date.
It also strongly condemned the Israeli occupation authorities for prosecuting Facebook activists and putting so many of them in prison for their opinions. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protect freedom of expression on the basis that everyone has the right to hold opinions without interference. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ 13) of the American Convention on the Protection of Human Rights provides for the same right.
She expressed her disapproval of the occupation policy followed by the method of extending the administrative detention of a number of journalists arrested in Israeli jails without charge, and the arrest of journalists under false pretexts and the arrest of others without charge for several years.
She called on the international community to protect Palestinian journalists and to activate mechanisms for accountability and prosecution of perpetrators of crimes committed by the occupying forces. Appeal to all journalists of the world to strengthen solidarity on the prisoner´s day with Palestinian journalists and the various media, which are subjected to grave and systemic violations by the Israeli occupation forces.
