June 10, 2021
RAMALLAH, West Bank Akram Salameh from the Beitunia district of Ramallah, in the central West Bank, received a phone call May 22 from the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service. He was told to appear at its headquarters in Ramallah the next day or his house would be raided and he would be arrested.
Salameh showed up as asked and was
sent to the Joint Security Committee prison in Jericho, where he was detained for 17 days before being released on June 7.
His father, Ali Salameh, told Al-Monitor he spoke to his son by phone twice during his detention for a few minutes. The first time, two days after his arrest, Akram asked his father to send him clothes. The second time he called to check on his family, who had not been able to visit him.
May 16, 2021 Share
Palestinian hackers were found to be involved in two “clusters of unrelated cyber espionage activity,” according to Facebook. Facebook accused the Palestinian Preventive Security Service’s (PSS) cyber department of conducting rudimentary hacking operations against Palestinian journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Authority political opponents in the West Bank and Gaza (PA).
Facebook accused them that they have also activity targeted Syrian opposition groups and the Iraqi military. But Ikrimah Thabet, PSS Director of Public Relations and Spokesperson, refuted the Facebook allegation. Nonetheless, the PSS cyber team worked to gain confidence from Facebook users by developing “fictitious personas” and then sending “malicious links” to the targeted accounts, allowing the PSS to spy on them. The campaign’s tactics were said to be crude but “persistent”.
Democratic Norms Come First | Opinion Shoshana Bryen
, Senior Director, Jewish Policy Center On 4/29/21 at 6:00 AM EDT
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with regard to elections in South America, tweeted earlier this month: I recall @POTUS saying: Democracy is fragile. That it must always be defended. That we must be ever vigilant. Elections are the first step. We must respect results and hold leaders accountable to sustain our democracies.
President Joe Biden is right: Democracy IS fragile. Secretary Blinken, on the other hand, is wrong.
Elections are not the first step in building a democracy. And where elections are fraudulent, coercive or outright anti-democratic, the United States has no general obligation to simply respect the results. Consider the current Middle East electoral calendar.
Democratic Norms Come First msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A new report from Facebook reveals the company closed down groups of hackers affiliated with the Palestinian security agency that used spyware to target journalists, activists, and government critics.