Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory / Middle East & North Africa

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wishes to protest the Palestinian National Authority’s recent closure of the Ramallah bureau of the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera reported today that PNA security authorities, acting on orders from Your Excellency’s office, closed the station’s Ramallah bureau yesterday and barred its staff from entering the premises. The move apparently resulted from a current Al-Jazeera promotional trailer that advertised a forthcoming episode in a documentary series about the Lebanese civil war. PNA officials apparently felt that the trailer was insulting to Your Excellency.

ALTHOUGH RIGHTS TO FREE EXPRESSION AND PRESS FREEDOM are enshrined in national constitutions from Algeria to Yemen, governments found many practical ways to restrict these freedoms. State ownership of the media, censorship, legal harassment, intimidation, and imprisonment of journalists were again among the favored tools of repression and control. In Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria,…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to you on the occasion of the formation of your new government to express concern about the safety of journalists working in Israel and the occupied territories.

Click here to view the CASES Click here to read the special report on Palestinian journalists, “Bloodied and Beleaguered.” New York, November 9, 2000 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented more than two dozen cases of journalists injured or harassed while covering political violence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip…

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in ISRAEL New York, October 31, 2000 — A CNN reporter was wounded by gunfire while covering clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip today.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the recent attack on two transmission towers and other technical facilities used by the Voice of Palestine in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in ISRAEL New York, October 5, 2000 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has confirmed that at least five journalists have been wounded covering violent clashes in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Three of the five cases involve journalists wounded by live…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express its deep concern about the recent death of Abed Takkoush, a driver for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Takkoush was killed by Israeli shellfire in southern Lebanon on May 23 during Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

Dear Gen. Jebali: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express its profound concern about the ongoing detention of Maher al-Alami, a Palestinian free-lance journalist who writes frequently for the weekly Al-Istiqlal.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest recent attempts by the Palestinian National Authority to silence private broadcast media in the West Bank.