Ramallah, 21-05-07: The Israeli army attacked 5 TV and 2 radio stations in Nablus, in the West Bank in the early hours of this morning. At 2am, soldiers invaded the premises of the 7 private media outlets and seized computers, broadcasting equipment, archives and files. The TV stations Afaq, Nablus, Gamma, Assia and Sana, as well as 2 radio stations, are now effectively shut down.
According to Palestinian law, media outlets must be licensed by the Ministry of Information and operate under its laws and regulations. The Minister of Information, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, confirmed that these 5 TV stations and 2 radio stations were fully licensed, and were law-abiding. He strongly condemned these Israeli attacks aimed at “silencing Palestinian voices on the conflict and destroying Palestinian freedom of the press”.
Freedom of the press is a fundamental human right and an essential component of democracy. By forcibly shutting down private media outlets over which it has no authority, Israel has yet again shown that it does not believe in democracy and actively opposes freedom of the press.
This is just one more aspect of a wider and long-term strategy by the Israeli government to impose its own narrative as the only legitimate representation of the conflict, to cover up its violations of international law and mislead world opinion with claims of “security reasons”. These direct attacks against the Palestinian media and journalists are part of the war of information Israel is waging against Palestinian democracy.