Sixty journalists and human rights groups on Monday called on European leaders to tear up the EU-Israel association agreement and demanded action to clarify responsibility for the killing of more than a hundred reporters.
According to the Federation of Spanish Journalists’ Unions (FeSP), the organizations have come together to send a letter this Monday to the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, calling for action against the unprecedented killings of journalists by the Israeli authorities and other violations of media freedom.”
In the letter, the organisations ask the EU to suspend the Association Agreement it has had with Israel since 2000 because they claim Tel Aviv has “violated human rights and international criminal law”.
They thus demand punishment for those responsible “for Israel’s war crimes and repeated violations of international law.”
In a letter written at the initiative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the organizations condemn the “widespread and systematic violations” that they stress are being committed “by the Israeli authorities in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel and elsewhere.”
In a document also sent to the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrowski and the foreign ministries of all EU member states, they warn that the Israeli government has taken “unprecedented measures to restrict media freedom, which in practice has led to the establishment of a censorship regime.”
The organizations call for an end to the blockade on the entry of international, Israeli and Palestinian journalists into Gaza, an end to legislation that allows the closure of foreign media outlets, the release of Palestinian journalists under administrative detention or detained without charge, and the protection of the lives of media professionals.
The signatories to the letter include journalists’ unions and other organisations from various European countries, as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists (FEP).
It also includes the International Press Institute (IPI), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and journalists’ unions from EU countries.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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