"Black Day" .. Wide condemnation of the blocking of the Palestinian Authority dozens of sites

Mervat Sadeq-Ramallah

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Ramallah Magistrate's Court in the West Bank on Monday decided to respond to a request by the Palestinian Authority's public prosecutor to block dozens of news sites and others based on cybercrime law provisions that "threaten national security and public order."

The resolution included more than 50 sites, some of which were repeated on a leaked list of media, and included previously blocked news sites such as the Quds News Network and the Palestine Dialogue Network, as well as news pages such as "Ultra Palestine", "Barricades" and "Arab 48", and other specialized In the stories that document the history of resistance in the video as "Palestine 27".

The list included Palestinian satirical pages, and others opposed to President Mahmoud Abbas as a page "Mahmoud Abbas does not represent me" and another attacking Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki.

The request of the Palestinian prosecution was based on the text of Article 39 of the Amended Cybercrime Law of 2018, which provides for the right of "competent investigative and seizure authorities, if they monitored the development of any websites, numbers, pictures, films or any propaganda material." Or any other matter, which would threaten national security, public order or morals, shall present a statement to the Attorney General or one of his assistants, and request permission to block the website or websites or to block some of its links from display. "

Under the title "Black Day in the History of the Palestinian Press", the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate considered the decision "a massacre of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the Palestinian media." A statement said the decision confirms its previous concerns that the Cybercrime Law is a sword on journalists' necks and "contradicts the government's pledges to safeguard media freedoms."

The union demanded the Supreme Judicial Council to take the necessary measures to overturn the decision and review the mechanism by which it was taken, and confirmed that it would take all legal procedures to challenge it and its legitimacy.

Sudden decision
The editor of the website "Palestine" journalist Mujahid Bani Mufleh said that the decision came as a surprise, as the site, which was launched in its Palestinian version in 2016, did not receive any official books or advance notices to block it from any side.

Immediately after the decision, the website "Ultra Palestine" on some Internet networks broke down. His editor told Al Jazeera Net that the ban was not limited to the local page of the Arabic site known as "Ultra Voice", but included all its branches: Ultra Tunisia, Ultra Iraq, Ultra Algeria and Ultra Sudan.

Bani Mufleh said that the site, which writes dozens of journalists, is keen to follow the utmost professionalism, and always communicates with the official authorities, including the Public Prosecution, to obtain its statements and positions in news, stories, reports and investigations prepared by.

In turn, the Palestinian government stressed by its spokesman Ibrahim Melhem to respect the independence of the judiciary and non-interference in its affairs, calling at the same time, "the competent authorities and the Attorney General to reverse the decision."

The government called on those in charge of all sites and social media pages "to adopt professional and ethical standards in the news and information materials published," stressing "the preservation of freedom of opinion and expression."

Majid al-Arouri, director of the National Commission for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of Law, considered the decision to block websites in a "prelude to a dangerous stage where the courts will become a tool to suppress freedoms and legitimize them in Palestine."

"The decision is extremely dangerous and will open the door for collective action to defend freedom of expression, the most serious judicial decision based on the law of cybercrime, and constitutes an ominous sign of press freedom and the independence of the judiciary," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Skyline International sent an urgent telegram to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kay, after the Palestinian Authority blocked dozens of websites. She called on him to intervene to stop what she called "an attack on freedom of opinion and expression in the Palestinian territories."

The organization called on the Palestinian Authority to immediately stop the decision to block sites. She said the article on which the decision was based "came loose and placed full authority in the hands of the executive and the judiciary to determine whether the sites violate security, peace, morals and order, questioning the credibility of the Palestinian Attorney General's report on that."

The "# blocking_criminal" tag topped the list of the most popular topics in Palestine, and hundreds of activists and journalists expressed their disapproval and mockery of the decision.

The Palestinian Authority blocked some 30 websites and news networks in 2017 on charges of links with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the separated leader of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), Mohammed Dahlan, before ratifying the law of cybercrime, which faced wide opposition rights and trade union.