Press House holds a round-table on " Freedom of Expression is a Right and a Responsibility"

On Wednesday, Press House - Palestine held a roundtable entitled "Freedom of Expression is a Right and a Responsibility" as part of a media campaign launched to enhance freedom of expression in Palestinian society.

The coordinator of " Enhancing Freedom of Expression, the Quality and Independency of Palestinian Media" project, welcomed the attendees presenting a brief introduction about the media campaign launched by Press House to raise awareness about the right to freedom of expression, the restrictions imposed on it and means of protection. Stressing that it is the base of any regime and a sign of democracy's existence.

Al- Malfouh pointed out that the campaign included radio spots, publishing billboards in the streets and holding tweeting sessions on social media sites. She added that the roundtable meeting is a continuation of these activities within the "Freedom of Expression is Right and Responsibility" campaign.

Legal expert Mohammed Abu Hashim said that there is a difference between the meaning of freedom of opinion considering it as an absolute freedom while freedom of expression, is applied in accordance with the international law, especially hatred and war speech, adding that we suffer from the problem of abusive expression that harms freedom of opinion and expression and contributes to creating a hostile atmosphere to freedom of opinion and expression.

On the other hand, journalist Sami Abu Salem considered that the laws, even if they are applied, remain elastic because there are laws that are subject to different societal ethics that vary from country to country.

Abu Salem called for training courses for the security forces on how to deal with journalists, how much space allowed for journalists and where they should stand, whether in the field or in the press writing area.

In the same context, the journalist Abdel Nasser Abu Aoun said that with the development of laws and freedom of expression, but with some controls, and the development of charters governing the process where freedom of opinion should not be too smooth and high, which makes us pay the price of the content through social media sites, which is what we are paying currently, as what he said.