The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) and the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) held a workshop for journalists on the right of access to information at Maan News Agency headquarters in Bethlehem, on Thursday 24 January 2012.

The workshop – which was conducted over four hours – covered important topics such as the concept of the right of access to information, local legislation ensuring this right - particularly Palestinian draft law - as well as international standards and best practices regarding the right of access to information, relevant international initiatives in this field, and compared them with the Palestinian legal status.

The journalists, who came from various media outlets in Bethlehem, spoke about the most prevalent obstacles facing them in their quest for information and discussed methods for overcoming these obstacles.

MADA and DCAF will hold a series of workshops in the different cities across the West Bank and Gaza Strip to promote journalists’ knowledge about access to information draft law, and to collect their notes and recommendations on this draft law to develop it.

Please visit www.marsad.info

In the 80-page Year of Rebellion: State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa , the organization describes how governments across the region were willing in 2011 to deploy extreme violence in an attempt to resist unprecedented calls for fundamental reform. Repression and state violence is likely to continue to plague the Middle East and North Africa in 2012 unless governments in the region and international powers wake up to the scale of the changes being demanded of them, Amnesty International warned today in a new report into the dramatic events of the last year.

Gaza/ on Tuesday, 20 December 2011, Al Dameer Association for Human Rights and its partners in the Civil Network to Protect the Right to Form Associations concluded a conference on Palestinian NGOs in the Scale of Transitional Justice, held at As Salam hotel in Gaza City. Representatives and activists in Palestinian NGOs participated in the conference. This conference is part of a project entitled " contributing to the Respect, Protection, and Promotion of the Rights of Freedom of Association in the Gaza Strip" supported by the European Union.


During the 66th General Assembly, the world’s attention has been focused on issues surrounding recognition of Palestinian Statehood. However, as human rights organizations we believe that the true question is not only one of Statehood per se; rather it concerns recognition of rights, and the fundamental importance of the rule of law.

This General Assembly must act to uphold the enforcement of international law, and to ensure that the accountability process triggered more than two years ago by the Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict reaches its full legal implementation.

The Fact-Finding Mission documented extensive evidence indicating the commission of crimes under international law by all sides in the context of Israel’s 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip. In accordance with the requirements of customary international law, a two-stage accountability process was initiated. First, all sides were required to address all allegations domestically. Second, in the event that these investigations failed to meet international standards, recourse to international justice mechanisms – particularly the International Criminal Court – was necessitated.

عقدت المحكمة العسكرية الدائمة في مقرها في مدينة غزة جلسة للنظر في قضية مقتل المتضامن الإيطالي فيتوريو أريجوني وذلك يوم الخميس الموافق 8 سبتمبر 2011. وقد حضر محامو المركز الفلسطيني لحقوق الإنسان بصفتهم وكلاء عن عائلة أريجوني كمراقبين.

وخلال الجلسة أصدرت المحكمة قرارها بالتأجيل لتاريخ 22 سبتمبر 2011، وتكليف النيابة بإحضار الشهود.

المركز الفلسطيني لحقوق الإنسان سيواصل عمله خلال الأيام القادمة على متابعة جلسات المحكمة لاطلاع عائلة أريجوني على مجرياتها وفقاً للتوكيل القانوني الممنوح من قبلهم لمحامي المركز.

وكانت المحكمة قد عقدت جلستين للنظر في ذات القضية وذلك خلال شهري يوليو وأغسطس المنصرمين.

In this bill, "a boycott against the State of Israel" is defined as: deliberately avoiding economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or body solely because of their affinity with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic damage.

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, Mr. Maxwell Gaylard, has encouraged the de facto authorities in Gaza to reconsider the decision of 12 July 2011 to dissolve the non-governmental organization Sharek Youth Forum.

Link: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_press_release_20_07_2011_englis...

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) monitored 13 violations against journalists in occupied Palestinian territories in the month of June 2011. The Israeli occupation forces committed the majority of violations, in addition to a number of violations committed by Palestinian security services. This indicates that Palestinian journalists are still suffering and subjected to serious risks while performing their professional work.

English - June report.pdf