IFJ Congress calls on Israel to stop attacking journalists in Palestine

IFJ World Congress meeting in Tunis from 11th to 14th June adopted a motion proposed by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) to condemn the continuous violations of press freedom in the Palestinian occupied territories.

Credits: Nadyr Senhadji

In recent years the IFJ has frequently denounced violence against Palestinian journalists, including killings by the Israeli Security forces of Yasir Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussain in 2018.

In November 2018 IFJ Executive Committee members stood at the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah in support of Palestinian journalists and for tge recognition of the IFJ press card in Israel. They were brutally attacked by Israeli soldiers.

The PJS’s Freedoms Committee documented 838 violations against Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of 2018.

The IFJ Congress joined the PJS “in calling on the Israeli authorities to stop these attacks against journalists and recognise IFJ press card as a bona fide accreditation of journalists.”

The IFJ Congress also called on IFJ Secretariat to “continue to support the PJS campaign to defend its members, in particular by taking their case to international institutions”, to “help seek legal remedies to these attacks” and to “lodge jointly with the PJS a formal complaint at the ILO against the Israel Defence Force”.

Another motion was passed condemning Israel violations of press freedom, proposed by the Syndicat National des Journalistes (France) and FSC CC-OO (Spain).

For more information, please contact IFJ on +32 2 235 22 16

The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 146 countries

Follow the IFJ on TwitterFacebook and Instagram

Subscribe to IFJ News