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2017-08-12 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Infighting: PA chief Abbas issues decree curbing free speech online
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[IsraelTimes] Ramallah has blocked 30 websites in the past month, most of them belonging to Paleostinian leader’s main rivals Mohammed Dahlan and Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,.
Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
has clamped down on social media and news websites -- the main outlets for debate and dissent in the West Bank -- with a vaguely worded decree that critics say allows his government to jail anyone on charges of harming "national unity" or the "social fabric."
Continued from Page 2
Rights activists say the edict, issued without prior public debate last month, is perhaps the most significant step yet by Abbas’s government to restrict freedom of expression in the autonomous Paleostinian enclaves of the West Bank.
A Paleostinian prosecutor denied the decree is being used to stifle dissent and insisted that a new law on electronic crimes was needed to close legal loopholes that in the past allowed offenders, such as hackers, to go unpunished.
However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
the government has blocked 30 websites in the past month, according to the Paleostinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, or Mada.
Five journalists working for news outlets linked to Hamas were detained this week and charged with violating the new law, according to the lawyer of one of those tossed in the calaboose
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
and an official in the association of Paleostinian journalists. Separately, four other journalists were called for questioning about social media posts critical of government policy.
The new decree stipulates prison terms ranging from one year to life for those who use digital means for a range of all-encompassing offenses. The list includes endangering the safety of the state or public order as well as harming national unity or social peace.
Abbas, 82, issued the decree at a time when he is facing new domestic challenges to his rule. Dahlan and Hamas have overcome their old rivalry to team up against Abbas with an emerging power-sharing deal in Gazoo, the territory Abbas’s Fatah movement lost to Hamas in 2007.
Polls routinely show that two-thirds of Paleostinians want Abbas to resign. He was elected to five years in 2005, but stayed on, arguing that political disagreement with Hamas prevented new elections. With parliament paralyzed as a result of the political split, Abbas has ruled by decree.
Abbas also failed to deliver on his central promise of setting up a Paleostinian state in talks with Israel. Gaps widened since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009, and an early Trump administration promise to revive long-dormant negotiations appears to have fizzled.
Officials in Abbas’s office declined to comment on the new decree or on long-standing complaints that Abbas and his government restrict freedoms in the West Bank. The officials said it was up to law enforcement and the Cabinet to comment. A government front man also declined comment, referring questions to the justice minister, who did not respond to phone messages.
Emad al-Masri, a mid-level manager in the Paleostinian Health Ministry in the city of Ramallah, was among the first to be prosecuted under the new law. He said he was detained in July, after being sued by two ministry officials for allegedly slanderous Facebook posts. The prosecutor said the pair eventually dropped their charges and the judge reduced the sentence from two years to three months, or a fine. al-Masri ended up paying about $130. Al-Masri, 45, said he believes he was targeted for his critical comments recently about Abbas’s new policy of tightening financial pressure on Gazoo to try to force the coastal strip’s Hamas rulers to cede ground.
"I think they meant to intimidate me, to silence me," said al-Masri, an activist in Fatah. His posts accused Abbas of harming ordinary Gazooks with his tough policies against Hamas.
The Paleostinian journalists’ association in the West Bank, though dominated by Fatah, said it would push back against the decree. An electronic crimes law is needed, but the association is concerned about articles that touch on freedom of expression and freedom of reporting, said Mohammed Laham, an official in the group. He said the association is working with the Independent Commission for Human Rights to offer alternatives to some of the articles. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2017-08-12 00:00||
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