Press House organizes a legal awareness session on the topic of “Media Rights and Freedoms in the Palestinian Laws & International Conventions”

Gaza – Press House

On Sunday, January 31, 2021, Press House – Palestine (BAS) organized a legal awareness session on the topic of “Media Rights and Freedoms in the Palestinian Laws & International Conventions” as part of “Palestinian Journalists Legal Protection” project activities in Partnership with European Endowment for Democracy.

With consideration of high preventive measures to prevent the outbreak of COVID19, lawyer Hadi Shuhaibar, lawyer Abdullah Sharshra, coordinator of the Legal Protection Unit for Journalists at Press House, and a group of media graduates and journalists’ (women and men) participated in the session.

Mr. Abdullah Sharshra opened the session stressing that Press House will hold many specialized legal awareness sessions related to the legal issues of journalistic and media fields this year, and the selection of these issues was based on results of surveys held by Press House legal protection unit on journalists during the past five years. He also added, that the main goal of these workshops is to build journalists’ (women and men) capacities in the legal field and to provide them with legal protection by reducing the volitation they may face as a result of lacking in the legal awareness.

From his part, Mr. Hadi Shohepar minutely reviewed the texts of the Palestinian publishing and publications law and the journalists’ rights and responsibilities in Palestine, comparing them with the human rights standards in the international agreements related to media freedoms. In addition, he pointed out that the publishing and publications law has become old and has not met the current media fields, such as digital media and broadcasting stressing that the law includes many legal articles related to general definitions of publishing, publications, what a journalist is, the rights of journalists’ (women and men) as well as the conditions of licensing a media organization.

The session included many inquiries from the participants. Most of the participations focused on the Palestinian journalists’ responsibilities and rights under the law and the most important criticisms of the Palestinian law from a human rights perspective. At the end, the participants called for amending the texts of the Palestinian law to be compatible with the international standards of media freedoms.