8/8/2019 SKeyes Denounces the Campaign of Arrests Against Journalists 5-8-2010 1

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Samir Kassir Foundation, Aref Saghieh Bldg.( Ground Floor), 63, Zahrani St., Sioufi, Achrafieh, Beirut, LebanonTel /Fax: 00961 1 397334, Mobile: 00961 3 372717, E-Mail Address: info@skeyesmedia.org

Beirut, 5 August 2010

Press release

SKeyes denounces the campaign of arrests against journalists and

academicians, and calls on the Palestinian Authority to release them

immediately

In the course of last week, the security services affiliated with the Palestinian National

Authority arrested three journalists, raising the number of journalists detained to five,

including 4 in the city of Nablus alone, while the number of detained academicians

reached nine, all professors from the Najah National University,

The most recent of these incidents was the arrest of the journalist and lecturer at the

faculty of journalism in the above mentioned university Dr. Farid Abu Dhair, who was

arrested by the Palestinian intelligence services on the evening of the second of August.

Abu Dhairs wife gave the following account of the incident to SKeyess correspondent

in the West Bank: Around eleven pm last Monday, members from the intelligence

service raided our home, and took my husband from the house. We have since been

hearing different news that he is being held at the Juneid prison, but we were not allowed

to visit him or check on him. Abu Dhairhad been arrested several times, without ever

being charged with any counts.

On the second of August, the intelligence services arrested six professors from the Najah

National University, of whom Dr. Ghassan Khaled was known, the lecturer in the Faculty

of Law, and Dr. Nizar Awratani from the Faculty of Information Technology, Dr. Wajih

Abu Eida, a lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, and Dr. Hassan Safaareen, a lecturer

at the Faculty of Law.This is at the academic level. At the media level, the intelligence services arrested the

journalist Mohammed Mona on July 28, 2010. This is in addition to the journalist Ahmad

al-Beitawi who works for the International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights, and

who has been detained since July 31, 2010.

The journalist Amer Abu Arfeh, the correspondent of the Shihab Electronic News

Agency, continues to be detained since May 11, 2010 after having been sentenced to pay

a fine and to three months in prison by a Palestinian military tribunal. In addition, the

correspondent of the Al-Aqsa Satellite TV Tareq Abu Zeid was sentenced before to one

year and half in prison on 16 February, 2010, by a military tribunal in the city of Nablus.

The SKeyes Centre for Media and Cultural Freedoms denounces the escalating campaign

of arrests against Palestinian journalists and media workers by the military securityservices, and deplores their detention without being charged, and without any legal

justifications that sanction this. SKeyes calls on the Palestinian authorities to immediately

release them and put an end to these violations against media freedoms in the territories

controlled by the Palestinian National Authority.