Ramallah/PNN/
In celebration of the World Press Freedom Day, the Office of the European Union Representative and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate joined Palestinian journalists to highlight the press’s vital role in promoting and protecting freedom of opinion and expression. During the event, 14 Palestinian journalists from across the West Bank were honored for their efforts in covering the COVID-19 pandemic and their significant contribution in reassuring the Palestinian public in times of crisis and uncertainty.
This event came after a competition launched by the EU and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate under the title “Journalists against Covid-19”. Over 130 journalists submitted journalistic material to compete under five different categories. All categories addressed different aspects of fighting Covid-19 including the evolving narratives around the pandemic.
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The Israeli government has not officially said whether it would permit polling stations to be established there, but Palestinian political sources say Mahmoud Abbas is interested in the postponement due to concern that his Fatah party would not secure the electoral victory that it is seeking.
According to Hamas, “elections must be held in Jerusalem” as a show of force “against the occupation,” amid heightened tensions in the city over the past weeks, with Palestinian residents and Israeli forces clashing in the Old City.
“We don’t take away responsibility from the occupation for delaying the elections,” Hamas added. Israel “bears responsibility for our people’s deprivation of rights,” it said, also taking a jab at “other international actors” who Hamas claims enable Israel’s policies against the Palestinians.
“Palestinians will not accept dictatorship. People want to be free,” one Palestinian adviser on the conflict with Israel said in March.
1 But since the last Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006, Palestine’s nascent democracy has been slowly squeezed by Israeli occupation and increasingly authoritarian Palestinian leaders. Now, fifteen years later, President Mahmoud Abbas has finally scheduled parliamentary and presidential elections. Rumors abound as to whether they will materialize. Ninety-three percent of eligible voters across Gaza and the West Bank have registered of which roughly half (ages eighteen to thirty-three) have never voted. For some Palestinians, it is a moment of hope; for the EU, it is a moment of sobriety.