The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) denounce
the dismissed government media office prevention of the International
Federation of Journalists to hold a media conference to discuss the
“Ethical Journalism Initiative” today morning, where it was scheduled
be held for two days, in conjunction with a conference at Ramallah via
video conference, on grounds of failure to obtain a license for it.

ABC TV correspondent and a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate
in Gaza, Sami Ziyara said that this prevention of convening the Conference
was a great disappointment to the journalists in Gaza. Ziyara added that
the governmental media office in Gaza asked the International Federation of
Journalists to apply for a permission from the government in Gaza to hold
the conference, but the “IFJ” refused to do so, because it used to hold
conferences in all countries of the world without a permit.

This prevention comes in the context of attacks on media freedoms, this
month in the Gaza Strip where Palestinian police detained and insulted the
Italian news agency "ANSA" correspondent Safwat AlKahlout , and prevented
him from traveling, while he was trying to travel through Rafah crossing,
on 3 November 2009. AlKahlout said that he was threatened directly by the
security officer at the gate of the Rafah border. And was detained when he
said that he would submit a formal complaint to the concerned authorities.

In the West Bank, the Palestinian military intelligence service arrested
Aqsa correspondent Tariq Abu Zeid on Sunday (8 November). His father said
that Tariq was summoned by the service on Saturday (November 7), while he
was walking in a street in Nablus city. And when he went to their
headquarters in Nablus yesterday, they arrested him. Abu Zeid also  was
arrested by Palestinian intelligence service in the twenty-seventh of last
August, and was released on the seventeenth of last September.

MADA condemns the conference holding prevention in Gaza, and demands the
dismissed government to rescind that decision. MADA also condemns the
attacks and harassment carried out against journalists in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. And calls for stopping them, because they are considered a
clear violation of freedom of opinion and expression.

www.madacenter.org