Mar 1, 2021
Palestine
The State of Palestine, located in Western Asia, was ranked 137 out of 180, the same as in 2019, according to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI), an annual ranking of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). According to the France-based NGO, the partially recognized state has moved down the list in the past 5 years as it used to rank at number 132 in 2016.
“Continuing tension increases the dangers of journalism in Palestine,” says RSF on their website, referring to the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been going on for years. The two states have been fighting over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank territories, even though they are both currently under Israel’s occupation.
The Palestinian population living in these territories suffers severe containment and serious hardships. According to the RSF website, that also impacts the media freedom and the quality of the information as “the Israeli forces have continued to subject Palestinian journalists to arrest, interrogation and administrative detention.”
“The political rivalry between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories includes threats, heavy-handed interrogation, arrest without charge, intimidatory lawsuits and prosecutions, and bans on covering certain events,” the RSF website clarifies, referring to the two rival political parties in Palestine.
The lack of political rights and civil liberties in these two territories is also evident in the Freedom House’s 2020 Freedom in the World report. In the report by the US-based NGO where both civil liberties and political rights of every nation are taken into consideration, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank scored 11 and 25 out of 100 respectively.
“The political tension combined with harassment by the Israeli authorities complicates the work of Palestinian journalists to the point of self-censorship,” was mentioned on the RSF website. These recent developments along with the authoritarian regime allow no ground for the free press to flourish and develop and that certainly explains the low ranking that Palestine has had recently.
Another issue is that of online content. “Several websites regarded by the Palestinian Authority as opposition media have been inaccessible since 2017. Online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter also sometimes censor information,” was said on the RSF website, while explaining how the political pressure deeply affects the amount of censored, suspended, or deleted accounts on social media.
This issue was also brought up in the West Bank’s 2020 Freedom in the World report. According to the report, “a Palestinian court ordered a shutdown of 59 websites and social media pages, all of which featured criticism of President Mahmoud Abbas, were affiliated with opposition groups, or focused on combating corruption”.
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Altea Sulollari is studying Business Administration at the American University in Bulgaria. She is interested in creative writing and media.
