PA TV chairman to appeal Israeli decision to shut new Arab channel

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Thursday 18 Jun 2015 - 19:49 Makkah mean time-1-9-1436 Falastine 1948 TV station Nazareth (IINA) – Riyad Al-Hassan, chairman of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation’s Board of Trustees, stated Thursday that he would appeal the Israeli decision to shut a new Arab TV satellite channel specifically targeting the Palestinian audience in Israel. Speaking to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), Al-Hassan slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to shut "Falastine 1984" as illegal. He noted that the administration of the new TV station will pursue all legal means to annul the decision.  Al-Hassan added that the new channel has purchased all services from licensed corporations and is working with human rights groups and legal advisors to appeal the Israeli decision. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu, acting in his capacity as the minister of communications, has instructed head of the Communication Ministry Shlomo Filber to work on shutting down the satellite channel. “The goal is to give a stage to the Arabs of ’48 so that they can expose to the Arab world everything they must go through, regarding their social, cultural and economic difficulties,” Al-Hassan said in a press conference to mark the opening of the new channel in Nazareth on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Journalists Association slammed Netanyahu’s decision as another attack against freedom of journalism and Palestinian media’s right to operate everywhere. It also slammed it as being racist, which aims to deny Palestinians their rights to voice their positions and discuss the issues that concern them in the language and style they prefer. The association called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and UNESCO, entrusted by the UN with safeguarding the freedom of opinion and expression worldwide, to take reprisals in response to Netanyahu’s decision which violates the basics of journalism as well as the UN Security Council’s resolution 2222. AB/IINA