Aqsa satellite TV channel decries escalation against W. Bank correspondents

GAZA — The Gaza-based Al-Aqsa satellite TV channel has strongly condemned the arrest of three of its correspondents in the West Bank at the hands of the Abbas’s militia, adding that the Abbas’s militia escalation against journalists must be halted.

The channel also described the unsolicited practices of the Abbas’s militia as a “massacre” against press freedom that human rights institutions around the world should condemn, underlining that  three of its correspondents namely, Tariq Abo Zaid, Osaid Amarneh, and Mohammed Eshtaiwi in the West Bank were arrested and tortured at the hands of those militia.

According to sources from the channel, Abbas’s militia kidnapped Abo Zaid and put him under interrogation, and practiced mental and unethical forms of torture against him, including stealing and using his personal e-mail to send pornographic materials to others.

For Eshtaiwi, the channel said, the Abbas’s militia stormed his home and arrested him despite his deteriorated health condition, stressing that the arrest of its correspondents were unwarranted and arbitrary.

None of the correspondents were charged although they were arrested and detained in Abbas’s jails several times, which needs strong and fair stand from the Palestinian judicial system against such barbaric practices of the Abbas’s militias.

Moreover, the channel deprecated the passive stand of the Palestinian journalist syndicate regarding the ill practices of the PA security forces against journalists in the West Bank, stressing that such indifference on the part of the syndicate strips it the eligibility to defend rights of its members, calling on journalists to search for another body that will represent them and protect their rights. The syndicate in the West Bank is headed by officials affiliated with Fatah faction, the political party of Abbas.

Nevertheless, the channel insisted that in spite of the frenzied practices against its correspondents at the hands of the Israeli occupation troops and the militia of Abbas, it wouldn’t refrain from pursuing its professional message, and it would keep the focus on the West Bank in order to relay what is really happening there and to relay the suffering of the West Bank citizens at the hands of the Israeli occupation and the PA security forces.