Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)

MADA has monitored a total of 43 attacks against journalist and media freedom in Palestine during December 2018, most of which were committed by Israeli occupation forces, with the remainder committed by Palestinians.

During March 2018, MADA documented a total of 46 violations against media freedom in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

As the saga of Saudi’s hunted elites commanded attention across the Middle East and North Africa this November, news of the region’s less powerful prey fell by the wayside. Authorities in Kuwait, Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, and Egypt went after protesters, journalists, and human rights defenders critical of their regimes.

Our Middle East and North Africa round-up spotlights Bahrain’s first military trial of civilians since 2011, a growing crackdown on members of Egypt’s LGBTQI+ community, and a new player restricting Iranians’ internet access.

The most recent attack included the shutting down of three media production companies and their branches in Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem. Israeli forces stormed their headquarters, destroying and confiscating equipment in an attempt to silence the Palestinian media.

Our monthly roundup spotllghts Egypt’s latest efforts to control the media (and rainbow flags), the Kurdish referendum (and aftershocks), a campaign to tackle self-censorship in Palestine and much more.

Journalist Hajar Harb has been tried in absentia, sentenced and fined for an investigative report on corruption in the Medical Referrals Department of the Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip.

Whether authoritarian regimes, so-called democracies or warring armed groups, those who wield power in the Middle East and North Africa have taken internet censorship to new levels and stepped up their individual campaigns against critics, journalists, and opponents this month.