The Coalition for Integrity and Accountability – AMAN expressed its concerns about the recent decision made by the Attorney General to ban number of news websites. In fact, such a decision is baseless in every sense of the word, as it violates the basic principles of law, human rights, and the value system of accountability. The unwise move impugns the Basic Amended Law, the Palestinian Press and Publication Law of 1995, the Decree-by-Law No. 15 of 2009 on the Telecommunication Sector. Article 27 thereof makes it crystal clear that “[p]ress shall not be subject to any sort of censorship. Press shall not be warned, blocked, suppressed, retrained or restricted without a court fiat according to Law.” As Article 19 of the very law stands, all forms of freedom of speech and expression shall be safeguarded.
AMAN also shed the light on the fact that this step is in breach of several conventions and covenants the State of Palestine is either signatory or party to, and thus it lumps together with the states violating the freedom of speech and expression. The ruling also undermines the justice system, for it gives a loophole for other authorities to infringe the mandate of the judiciary and violate the rule of law, and it leaves the door ajar for conflict of interests. On its part, AMAN has called upon the stakeholders to form a national independent nonbiased committee to reform the justice sector. AMAN also called every attention to the gravity of the violation of law, illegal use of power to interfere in the judiciary mandate, and the dwindling public confidence in the justice.
By the same token, AMAN highlighted the role of official information disclosure and accessibility in quashing baseless back-fence talks and fabrications. The incorporation of the enactment of the Law on the Access to Information on the Government agenda helps the public access to sources of information and news. Until the Law finds its way to the light, AMAN called upon the Government to embark on the classification of public information and records and publish an info access mechanism along with the available information on the official websites. AMAN’s call is rock-bedded on simple principium that the rule is to allow access public information as far as they are not private and secret official information, which shall be made known to every member of the public.
