Iran Press/ Middle East: The PPS said that two of the journalists, Zaina Halawani and Wahbi Makkia, were arrested on Friday and an Israeli occupation court rejected an appeal to release them. Alaa Al-Rimawi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and head of the online news agency J-Media, has been imprisoned since 22 April without any official charge being brought against him.
On 21 May, an Israeli judge ordered an 11-day extension to the administrative detention of another Palestinian journalist, Alghad TV cameraman Hazem Nasser, who was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to the West Bank town of Tulkarm on 12 May as he was returning from Nablus, where he had been filming Israeli forces attacking Palestinians.
Ahmad Azaizeh, a blogger who freelances for various outlets including Bokra.net, a local news site, was also arrested at his home on 12 May after covering Israeli forces attacking Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem, and was placed in administrative detention for “inciting hatred.”
Another Palestinian woman journalist is also currently detained, Bushra Al-Taweel, who has been held since 8 November 2020, when she was arrested on the road from Ramallah to Nablus.
All this while Western governments and international mainstream media have concentrated on an obscure incident in Belarus, when a bomb threat against a commercial aircraft was reported, forcing the pilot to land in Minsk.
On arrival, a Belorussian neonazi blogger was arrested. As a result, Belarus is now the subject of an array of sanctions and punitive measures.
Such concern for freedom of expression does not apply to Israel.
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