AMMAN — A day after journalists and human rights activists issued a statement
appealing to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) to “serve justice” to
Jordanian
Journalist Farah Maraqa who was suspended from work in December over
accusations of anti-Semitism, alongside a number of other Arab journalists,
Jordan
News spoke to some of the signatories to the statement to get their
reactions on the matter.
اضافة اعلان
In their statement, the journalists and activists
urged DW to draw the line between “criticism of the Israeli government’s
practices — as an occupying force under international laws- and anti-Semitism.”
The statement said Maraqa “was falsely accused of
allegations and was deprived of her rights to defend herself,” condemning
German media’s publication of Maraqa’s full name and address, which the
statement said “infringes on her right of privacy and subjects her to
defamation and threats.”
The statement said the accusations not only “would
destroy the journalists’ careers, but constitute a distortion of the facts that
take place in Palestine.”
Ohood Mohsen, a journalist and signatory, said that
freedoms are indivisible and that it is a journalist’s duty to convey people’s
opinions. “What would be the case if this person was a Palestinian girl trying
to portray the truth about her country to the world objectively and without
distorting the facts,” she said.
Mohsen called on the concerned authorities to
address the issue with utmost seriousness in support of Maraqa, “Today Farah is
the one accused and tomorrow it would be another Arab person; the problem is
not with Farah or her colleagues, the problem is about distorted facts,” she
said.
The statement also made the point that the
investigated articles that led to DW’s decision to suspend Maraqa were written
before she and the others joined the German broadcaster.
“Digging in old publications is a violation of a basic
human right and is not acceptable to prosecute someone for old reports that
he/she wrote years ago,” said the Journalist Mohammad Shamma.
He added that the results of the investigation were
supposed to be released on the January 15, however, they were postponed and yet
to be released later. “The investigation will decide if Maraqa is innocent or
no, and based on that, the German courts will decide the next step”.
Khaled Qudah, member of the Jordan Journalists
Association, said that Maraqa and her colleagues’ writings represent the voice
of Palestinians and highlight the Palestinian cause, “giving things their true
description, like saying that resistance is not terrorism, as is often
described.”
He said voiced the association’s solidarity with
their colleagues, and urged international media institutions to stand with the
rights of Palestinians, “especially since some have begun to legitimize
Israel’s existence and its occupation of Palestine.”
Journalist Ahkam Dajani said that DW should
reconsider its decision, and said that international media should respect and
guarantee the freedom of speech of journalists, particularly when this freedom
concerns “their right to defend their country and express their solidarity with
the people under occupation.”
Rakan Saaideh, Head of the
Jordan Journalists Association said he was fully in support of Maraqa and her colleagues, adding
that the association will take all the necessary measures to defend those
journalists. “It is time for us now to work together to support Arab
journalists anywhere in the world, and to call on the international media to
protect and treat them equally as other foreign journalists.”
Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster and
provides journalistic content in 32 languages.
Read more National news
.jpg)
.jpg)
