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PA extends detention of 3 Palestinian journalists in West Bank

August 10, 2017 at 11:55 am

Journalists demonstrate in Gaza after the Palestinian Authority censored 30 news sites on 30 June 2017 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

The Palestinian Public Prosecution extended yesterday the detention of three Palestinian journalists from the occupied West Bank for one more day, Shehab news agency reported.

Family sources named the three journalists as Amer Abu Arafa, reporter of Shehab, Mamdouh Hamamra and Ahmed Halayqa, correspondents of Al-Quds TV.

The Public Prosecution renewed the detention after the journalists’ lawyer and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate asked the Palestinian security services to release them immediately, stating that their detention is illegal.

Shehab said that PA security services arrested five journalists on Tuesday after raiding their homes and confiscating their mobiles and laptops. They also handed the family of a sixth journalist a detention order.

Read: Abbas suspends security coordination with Israel but continues assaulting journalists

Journalists at the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the detention of the journalists and the attempt to arrest a sixth, saying this is a “dangerous threat to free speech and freedom of expression”.

PA sources claimed that the journalists were arrested for allegedly leaking sensitive information about the PA to a hostile party.

In a statement the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said that “justifying the detention is a crime worse than the detention itself”.

#PressFreedom

The Syndicate also noted that the journalist Fo’ad Jarada has been detained in Gaza for two months.

Early this week security services in Gaza met with representatives of rights group in Gaza and arranged for them to meet Jarada in prison, stressing that he has not been imprisoned for his work.