The Mada Center for Human Rights counted 84 violations against media freedoms in Palestine; 65 were implemented by Facebook for social media and 17 by Israeli occupation authorities.
The Mada Center said in a statement on Sunday, that the month of May has seen a dramatic increase in the number of violations compared to April, which saw a total of 19 violations only. PCHR renewed the number of violations during the month of May, mainly as a result of a large closure campaign implemented by Facebook and included the closure of the accounts and pages of 65 Palestinian journalists and writers. On 23 and 24 May, Facebook launched a wide-ranging closure campaign targeting at least 77 pages, including pages for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to the Center for Human Rights, Israeli violations recorded a limited increase last month, amounting to 17 attacks compared to a total of 12 Israeli attacks against media freedoms recorded in April. "The most serious is that a number of Israeli violations during May falls within the very serious and dangerous attacks on media freedoms." Palestinian violations continued to decline in May, dropping from 8 to one.
